## A Third Dialogue on the Essays and Reviews, section b.

Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology, both compared with Scripture.

J. N. Darby.

<09003E> file section b.

151 W. It would be curious if Bunsen's wanderings were only a reproduction of Philo. But where are you leading my thoughts with all this?

H. Not an unnatural question. First we are examining a professed review of Bunsen, and enquiry into his real views is the best answer; and it shews the true character of the teaching sought to be introduced. Philo indeed was, while for ever allegorizing, so far soberer, that he recognizes the literal history, though, like Augustine, saying, when it is dishonouring to God's thoughts, it must be taken mystically. Still he respects the written word far more than Bunsen and our Essayists.

But I had also a more precise object. I have only, could only, in our brief intercourse bring forward points of contact, but the more Philo's views are before the mind as a whole, the more the similarity — the identity, I may say, is apparent. Another character of the λόγος which Philo gives will lead me to the point. The λόγος, or divine reason, is faith in us; that is, the λόγος, or divine immanent reason, becoming in its acting in man intelligence, the ὀρθὸς λόγος, or right reason in the abstract, which is divine, is, as far as it acts, right reason in man (i.e., in the wise); and the archetypal idea is in the mind of man faith; he has seized it as having, as the wise man, this right reason in himself, it being in himself so far as he is wise. That which is seized is the idea in God, but it is the idea in the man's mind, the λόγος being his intelligence. It is a copy of the original copy, or production of the inherent mind of God. As inherent, it is unknown. As become intelligible in the λόγος, an idea, it is νοητός, capable of being a subject of thought; and the human mind, which is the action of the λόγος in us, thinks it, has the idea, believes it as truth. Thus it is faith. This seems subtle, but it is not difficult to understand. The thinking power is not thinking. When I think, I have a thought. Thus what was simply intelligent, capable of thinking, is intelligible, becomes in the produced thought a possible subject of another's apprehension. If the same intelligence is in another as his mind, it is the spring of the same thought in him. The λόγος as immanent reason in God is unknown, but as a whole of thoughts, when thinking has taken place, when the divine mind has had or produced thoughts, is not all known, but νοητός knowable; and then archetypal ideas become by the λόγος being also our reason, our ideas. Hence the λόγος is the archetypal idea, and faith, according to Philo. Forgive me this dose of Alexandrian philosophy. You will see its application to revelation in a moment.

152 W. I begin to catch it already. But it denies positive revelation. It is a kind of deifying the intelligence of man, making him, in some strange way, the proper source of the same thoughts, called faith, and so, eventually, a part of God.

H. Yes. This comes from the connection of conscience and reason on moral subjects, the judging process of the mind and perception of good and evil. Thus, where the will, or that in which we take pleasure, coincides with the conscience — the judgment of good and evil, there is moral perfection. God is realized; or, as Bunsen says, man is God.

W. But then, if I understand this, it is a direct denial of all revelation. It is a partial possession of the divine nature, which may be morally complete, in virtue of which man has in himself the thoughts of God, and that naturally, which equally denies what is revealed — the sinful alienation of man from God. Scripture says, "All the imagination of the thoughts of his heart were only evil, and that continually;" Gen. 6:5, and the deep practical experience of one who understood the spirituality of God's law could say, "I know that in me — that is, in my flesh — dwelleth no good thing;" Rom. 7:18, and that, even when to will was present with him, how to perform that which was good he found not.

153 H. Precisely. It is a denial of revelation, and a denial of the truth as to man; and, in revelation, a dropping — I will not say denial — of every divine object.

W. But I have a difficulty here, because Philo surely recognized a divine revelation.

H. Your remark is quite in place; but it leads to the confirmation and clearing up of the real truth on this question — "What is revelation?" From his education and habits as a Jew he distinctly recognized the inspiration of the Old Testament — particularly of Moses' writings, but of all; and inspiration in the fullest sense, the operation of the Holy or prophetic Spirit; so that man was wholly shut out. He was far more a believer in his theory on this subject — very far — than Bunsen or the rationalists, even the most moderate of them. But two things are to be observed: first, he philosophized independently of the scriptures, though he sought to bring them in as confirmatory, and allegorized them even where he owned them to be historical. Abraham meant one idea, Israel another, Jacob another. He often admitted only ideas — no literal history at all. He was the most outrageous spiritualizer, but reducing all to man as he is looked at as virtuous. Hence evident inconsistencies. But, what is more material, there was no divine object in revelation for him. God remained necessarily unknown in Himself. The revelation he had was of ideas. The λόγος — the universal idea of all — the universe; the bringing this idea into finite man's mind, a little world of answering ideas, formed a microcosm as the philosophers called it. Man was, when virtuous, when partaker of θειῶν ἀρετῶν (divine virtues), an ἀστεῖος ἀνὴρ (Bunsen's "eminent" men), a possessor, as we have seen, of the ὀρθὸς λόγος, which, in its infinitude, was a kind of middle being between God and creatures (the evident origin of Arianism, and the early philosophical Christianity of Alexandria). The law for him was the expression of this perfect or right reason, and was to be perpetual and universal. But there were thus only great principles and ideas to be made good — there was no divine object at all. God was inaccessible. The λόγος comes out as a universal archetypal idea, realized finitely in creation, but not as a personal object of faith, though sometimes treated almost as a person, because acting in power; and this λόγος was man's intelligence. Messiah is only referred to as a conqueror to come, subduing the Gentiles, and making good Jewish hopes; beasts to be tamed — men too; sickness to depart; the Jews to be a kind of world priests. There is no proper revealed divine object of faith. The soul is an ἀπόσπασμα, a shred, an ἀπαύγασμα, a shining forth, a ray, an ἐχμαγεῖον ἐμφερὲς corresponding impress of God. It existed before, came into a body, and so was lowered and dualized (and this circumscription of our spirits in the limits of flesh and time, practical selfishness, Bunsen reckons the fall); and when it dies, goes back to heaven, restored to unity. There is a reproduction of the word in the soul, but no revealed object before it. This part of man is reason and conscience.

154 Now you will find that this makes the ground taken by the new school most distinct. They claim the title of reason and conscience to judge of all, that is, of the finite λόγος, so to speak, in man — the moral perceptive power in man to judge of everything. By what? By itself. Man, as he is, is the measure of right and wrong and good and evil. Now, if the Word has been made flesh — God revealed in man, this cannot be. He is the true and perfect measure, and His words, expressing what He is, will judge men — not now, unless inwardly, but when the time of gracious revelation is over, the same will judge him in the last day. Now this is Christianity in its great elementary truths. It declares man has failed and is evil, though he had a conscience. God had taken care that when he left God and sinned, and sought independence (i.e., sin as to will, as corruption is sin as to lust), he should carry a conscience, a knowledge of good and evil with him. He has sinned without a law, and wallowed in corruption; he has sinned under law, which forbade the corruption and denied the independence, claiming obedience, and therein righteousness. Nay, he has sinned in rejecting goodness itself when it came into the world after all this. Now, wrath is revealed from heaven against both ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. But withal God's righteousness is revealed, not on a principle of works — man was judged and condemned on that principle — but as God's righteousness by faith, and so to every one, without law or under law, who believed. But how? In a divine object presented — God Himself manifested in grace, as man dying to put away sin, that blessing might be in righteousness, and no allowance of evil, and a new divine life communicated. In a word, God is revealed in Christ to be the condemnation of flesh and man, but to be a new eternal life come down from heaven, making men thus partakers of the divine nature; and, while putting away sin, and glorifying God in this respect, giving a perfect object of this life — the Father revealed in the Son. A divine object is before us — the Word made flesh, "we beheld his glory, the glory as of an only-begotten from the Father." He "dwelt among us, full of grace and truth."

155 I have here (very imperfectly, but sufficiently at this moment) sketched the revelation — a revealed object. My purpose here, of course, is not to unfold doctrine, but give the character of the revelation. Now the new school comes in and says, "But I must judge this by what is in man." Nay, I say, it judges what is in man — in grace and for his good; but it is the truth. Christ is the truth and judges man. It is a revelation after man has had full scope, with conscience, reason, and a perfect rule for it, the law; and all in vain. It is a revelation coming because that was insufficient, because man was incompetent, and proves it; and brings in salvation in a new revealed object, which is not what was in man, but in God — a second man, but the Lord from heaven.

Let us now see how Bunsen's statement as to revelation embodies the evil principle I have referred to. He says, "Such a direct communication of the divine mind as is called revelation has necessarily two factors which are co-operating in producing it. The one is the infinite factor, or the direct manifestation of eternal truth to the mind by the power which that mind has of perceiving it; for human perception is the correlative of divine manifestation." Now, absurd as this is, it is plain enough. It is Philo's ὀρθὸς λόγος, right reason, and faith, or the reason and conscience of the new infidel school. A manifestation to, by the power of perceiving, is absurd — absurd in every case. It supposes an object, but an object by a power of perceiving. Now God can will an object, but needs then no revelation, of course. If man perceives, he must have something to perceive; it is not manifested by his power to perceive; or he creates, or has the divine nature, with its thoughts, as a given mind. This is just Philo, and is false, metaphysically and morally, because he is not infinite, and he is evil. Scripture makes the contrast, and refers the knowledge of the divine mind to the believer only and the Holy Ghost who shews things to us. "What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? so no man knoweth the things of God but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God." A man knows the things of a man by the spirit of man; the things of God (these are new, freely given things, objects not inherent in the mind), the Spirit of God only. He is given to them that believe, takes the things of Christ and shews them unto us. I am not arguing now whether scripture be true; but shewing that the Christian system is directly in every part in antagonism with the system we are examining.

156 W. Most clearly, and, I may say, rationally and morally so; but perfectly opposed in every particular.

H. What I think striking is, that it goes over the same ground, the mind, its thoughts, conscience, relationship of God to man, our being His offspring; but in every point, instead of building up the competency of man in his old position, treats him as incompetent and fallen, and brings in a new thing, the Second man, the revelation of God, and of the Father, and of the Son. It shews liberty from rites and legal ceremonies, the bondage of the law, the higher prophetic light, even before Christ; but instead of reducing it into the limits of the Adam nature to exalt man (that is, self), it uses it to shew him condemned in his Adam condition, incapable of thus knowing God, and gives new life, new objects, a new state, and a perfect revelation of all that was needed to introduce it, and to be that on and in which it lived.

W. But Baron Bunsen gives a second factor.

H. He does, but we do not gain much there. It "is the finite, or external." This mode of divine manifestation is, in the first place, a universal one; the universe, or nature. In a more special sense, it is an historical manifestation of divine truth through the life and teaching of higher minds among men. These men of God are eminent individuals, who communicate something of eternal truth to their brethren, as far as they themselves are true. They have in them the conviction, that what they say and teach of things divine is an objective truth, "will last" therefore; but mark, only a truth. "The difference between Jesus and the other men of God is analogous to that between the manifestation of a part, and of the totality and substance of the divine mind." Thus Christ is a perfect revealer at best, not a personal object of faith to whom we are subject as the Son. That is, my mind perceives truth partially. His completely, and so teaches. Thus it is expressed, "God's eternal thought of Himself became personal in finite existence in a man, conscious of His divine nature." Remark, He becomes personal, and is then finite. He is Son, and God is Father only in a finite way. Otherwise, "He is God's thought of Himself in space and time." "It has the principle of life in this divine self-consciousness." "That primitive consciousness lived in Him constantly and perfectly" — in Jesus. The former part is pure Philonism; the latter, the incarnation of God's eternal thought of Himself in a man, who thus lived in the consciousness of His divine nature is of course not Philo's.

157 But we know now what revelation means, and why the reviewer speaks of the revelation of Christ, and of not confining it to Him.

I proceed with Bunsen. "God reveals, that is to say, manifests Himself directly to mankind by the mind. This manifestation addresses itself to man's rational conscience, or to the consciousness of truth and goodness. This direct manifestation is that of the eternal word or reason, and is the key to the indirect manifestation of God to man through the creation and through history." Hence, "there must be faith in the divine element in the soul." "The contemplation of God in the history of mankind is the most natural and most universal means of strengthening the innate faith of the soul in its own destiny."

"The scriptures of the Old and New Testament exhibit such a record of humanity;" "bearing eminently the character of humanity, they are eminently prophetic."

"Christ is the centre of the universal development, typically exhibited in the Jewish records."

He adds, "Moses had coined out of the law of conscience, which Abraham had made the distinctive law of his family, the ritualized law of that nation which he formed out of Abraham's descendants." In another place, he says, "the wickedness and stubbornness of the people obliged him (Moses) to surround this spiritual law (contrary to his original intentions) with ritual and ceremonial regulations."

"Jesus proclaimed it the law of mankind by attaching it directly, without any national medium, to the consciousness of God Himself dwelling in man and in mankind. He divinized man because He realized God." "He based upon faith in her (the soul's) origin and destiny . . . the whole social life of mankind." Hence he holds that, by revolutionary destruction of hierarchy and empires, there will be by the prevalence of conscience a kind of moral millennium.

Now here God dwelling in man, the direct revelation to man's rational conscience, is the infinite factor, the judge of all. The finite (and even Christ comes in here, though personally Bunsen ascribes to Him a perfect consciousness of the whole of God's thought of Himself) is a secondary and external one. Mankind's history strengthens the internal, but no more. Jewish records give man's expression of this. Christ is the centre of this finite external one. Eminent men have given it out, as far as they thought they had the perception of truth. Christ is not a part but the whole reason of God in a man, to whom God gave eternal life, for so He says.

158 But revelation is, as a direct thing, merely and only the perception of truth by man's mind as man, through the eternal reason of God dwelling in him as man. And he must have faith in this divine element in himself. Eminent men may give out their consciousness of it, and, if true, give it out with a conviction that it is lasting truth. But this is all secondary and indirect. Direct revelation is only the inward perceptions of man's natural mind. And the Bible is prophetic in general, not because of its divinity, but because of its humanity, and that it is the expression of what passes in the human mind. The eternal reason of God dwells in man, and man by it perceives, and that is revelation in all. What makes some to be eminent, we are left to conjecture. Philo was dreadfully embarrassed here too. However, is this a denial of a revelation or not? Is it a denial of Christian doctrine or not? That is the positive announcement of the word of God claiming absolute authority over the conscience, partial and preliminary by the prophets, fully and openly by Christ and His apostles. Men were to receive it as the word of God which was effectual in those that believed. It was for the obedience of faith among all nations, man being darkness, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in him.

W. It is most clearly a positive denial of revelation altogether. For the secondary or finite one is only reproducing the first, and is good only as far as the conviction of the speaker goes (i.e., not God's word). It is a positive denial, too, of the whole doctrine of Christianity, as to the fall of man, and a redemption, and a new life.

H. You can now, too, clearly see why in this system rational conscience is to judge of all else, be it what it may; and this is the essence of their system. Man is to have faith in the divine element in his own soul. Hence "the evidences of our canonical books and of the patristic authors nearest to them are sufficient to prove illustration in outward act of principles perpetually true (is that revelation?), but not adequate to guarantee narratives inherently incredible or precepts evidently wrong;" i.e., we are finally judges of right and wrong. Now, the Gospels are, in another sense, an "illustration in outward act of principles perpetually true." For God Himself is love and man hatred against Him. But it is a mere record, according to Dr. Williams, of the truth and falsehood, the right and wrong, of which we are judges as of any other book. It is not a bit more the word of God or a revelation from God than any other book. It may be better, if those of whom it relates correctly the facts and sayings were better. But it is no revelation. We are judges of its contents, and select as we please. That is, God has given no revelation at all; for, if He has given a positive revelation of His mind, it is quite clear it must both guide and judge us, not we it. The whole system is infidelity without the honesty to own it, and nothing else.

159 And what, consequently, is man according to Baron Bunsen? "The finite realization of the Spirit of God as good in individual consciousness developed in time." We see that all this is historically false, and that man has received everything that is vile, and crucified Him who by their own confession was goodness and truth. No man received His testimony; those who did receive Him were born, not of man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. It was a work, a new work, wrought in them. They, and they only, set to their seals that God was true. St. Paul further declares, that what he had was communicated to him by the Holy Ghost, that He imparted it in words taught of the Holy Ghost, and that it could only be received by the Holy Ghost in contrast with the natural man.

I conclude that the system is historically false, theoretically false: i.e., its pretension that it is rationally Christian is false. It is diametrically opposite to the theory of Christianity and all the principles of scripture; and in doctrine not merely infidel but anti-Christian. Take away Christianity, and what have you? Let history tell.

I must add, that I think it dishonest to use Christian language for the purpose of denying all that the words mean. To say that the perceptions of a man's mind are a revelation from God, is deceiving by an abuse of words. But it is well to get at the fact that the question is: Is there a revelation or not — a revelation addressed to man, claiming authority over man because it is the word of God? If they say there is not, we know what we are about, which they are doing their best to conceal. In my judgment their views are from Satan himself — the direct work of the enemy — devilish in their nature. I do not use the word as vulgar and abusive, but in its strict and proper sense.

W. Well, I suppose we must admit them to be such if they are not of God; for they are not simply human mistakes and reasonings (though that may be the case as to individuals), but a systematic antagonism to a divine revelation of the truth, and of the truth revealed.

160 H. We have one or two points which we should do well to consider. The value of moral and miraculous evidences. It is a subject treated in these Essays, and has its importance.

W. It has considerable importance. Infidelity is evidently natural to the mind of man, i.e., when God is revealed, and the truth. And this question of evidences meets with this propensity in the heart as much as the truth itself.

H. First of all you must remark, that evidences suppose either reluctance to receive or difficulties inherent in man as to the reception of truth. If man's mind met the truth as such at once, there would be no need of any evidences, no need of our new school investigating so much; but men do reason to prove the truth (i.e., it is not intuitively known or necessarily received). The new school declare the human mind productive of truth as being an intelligence which is the divine word in finite action in man. Christianity declares the truth to be revealed in and by Christ, and those sent by Him; and, as to ordinary men, He has declared, "Because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not." John 8:45. And again, "He was in the world, and the world knew him not. He came to his own, and his own received him not." John 1:11, "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." John 1:5. That truth was found by man is false; it was not. He arrived at "What is truth?" Christ came to bear witness to it.

Now, assuming that there is such a thing as truth (and there must be, or there is nothing; for if there is something, a true statement or knowledge of what it is, is the truth), either man is omniscient, or he wants the truth to be made known to him. If he does, he needs evidences, unless he be so absolutely proper for its reception, that to state it is sufficient for its reception (i.e., unless the truth be self-evident). If he be not so receptive of truth (and we are sure he is not), he needs evidences of it, because he has reluctance or difficulties.

But I go farther: truth cannot really be self-evident to a creature, because, let men be as proud as they will, in a creature the moral condition depends on the object he is occupied with. Is it gold? he is covetous. Power? he is ambitious; and so on. Hence the moral condition is the fruit of the object. There may be lusts and tendencies dominant; but actual character is determined by an object. Now, to know goodness as a creature without a revelation of it, I must be perfectly good. But I am not — far from it. When therefore it comes, it finds me not perfectly good (i.e., so far averse to what is good). I do not know whether any one pretends to being perfect goodness; if not, he is something as a morally active being; he is selfish. Is it not true?

161 W. Alas! yes.

H. That is, a revelation of perfect goodness meets selfishness which is incapable of receiving it. Besides, in fact, there is corruption, prejudice, superstition, into which selfishness has formed itself. And God, who is light as well as love, makes havoc with this. "No man, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new, for he saith, The old is better." If your infidel says, Man is innocent, and education has given him prejudices, and connected his will with his lusts, so as to make passions; I say, Be it so. I do not believe it; but be it so. But man is educated; he is a Jew, a Romanist, a Heathen, a Protestant. Pure truth comes; it meets his prejudices, and evidences are needed. If these are sent, it is the activity of grace. They are not simply to prove the truth (to a mind who sees the truth as truth, it needs no proof), but to prove it to man, because man is prejudiced, and deeply prejudiced. But man has a conscience (and the truth does reach it even when will is opposed), has a heart, yea selfishness, and is miserable; and can feel goodness, though opposed to the claim of God over his will as light and love (for if God reveals Himself He must claim subjection, and to bless must make man give up his will, that own will, which is alienation from God, and mixes in his lusts). Attraction is felt, the claim felt in conscience, the claim of goodness, the beauty of what is holy felt in conscience, what God is, is felt; but there are deep obscurities through prejudice and lusts, and reluctance through feeling how much it will cost. Ignorance of what God ought to be, prejudice against what He is. "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" John 1:46

What is to be done? Man ought to receive grace and truth, light and love. Yet he would not want it revealed if he were not morally in contradiction of will with it. God gives adequate evidences to overtop the prejudices, to force on the mind that what is presented to it must be a revelation of God. Men have enquired as to receiving truth because of miracles, or miracles because of truth. Both and neither. Men ought to receive truth because it is truth — abstractedly, ought: for unfallen he would not need a revelation; fallen puts the case that he is indisposed: but, abstractedly, a nature suited to truth would receive the truth. "If I tell you the truth, why do ye not believe me?" John 8:46

162 But this is not so. Man does not like to come to the light, because his deeds are evil. God therefore in grace gives evidences, miracles if you please, when the revelation of the truth is there; not when, to speak historically, it has been admitted as truth. But this is great grace. "Believe me," says Christ, "that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works' sake." John 14:11. There is the place of truth and of miracles, "which at first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard it, God bearing witness by signs and miracles," etc. Heb. 2:3, so "confirming the word by signs following." Mark 16:20. Where faith was founded only on miracles, the Lord did not own it; there was nothing moral in it. But He did give miracles to help men to believe the holy truth of love.

But men say, all is to be reduced to general laws: and if anything cannot, it cannot be believed. God would not disturb general laws. The most general law is that God is love, and miracles, used as I have said, shew this more than a physical law. I affirm that, compared with miracles, general laws are nothing as a revelation of God. There are general laws, I admit: an increasing number of phenomena may be reduced to them — perhaps, had we all the secrets of nature, all of them. I will suppose that, however irregular phenomena may appear, all can be reduced to general laws; but I do not know hereby a personal God; I do not now Him morally. All goes on admirably. I am so constituted — for this is the real fact — that, seeing a creature, I suppose a Creator. As has often been said, a design proves to the human mind (rather it is inherent in the idea, that is, in the constitution of man) a designer. When I say design, I think of a person, a cause for what exists. Constituted as I am, I cannot help doing so. Now, this proves I cannot know God; for I cannot think of a thing's existing without a cause. But He exists without a cause, as we have said — that is, His very nature of God; and what makes me know there is one proves I cannot, in the nature of things, know Him. But that is not my object now.

The knowledge that there is a God is no personal revelation of God — no revelation at all. I conclude there must be. I am right. I conclude to immense power, and pretty surely to His unity, as the apostle says, His eternal power and Godhead — a solemn truth, from which many an enquiry may arise. Where is He? Who is He? Is He good? Does He think now at present of men? Does He govern all things? I have only a conclusion of my own mind that there must be a God of power who made the universe; not that there is. No conclusion gives this, because my conclusion is only the sequence of an idea. But am I in any relationship with Him? am I part of a system governed by general laws and no more? — for the absoluteness of these is insisted upon. If I am not a part of these general laws, what relationship have I with God? My new-school man tells me I have a conscience and reason, am free, and so forth; that is, I am not governed, like a planet, by general laws. Ah! ah! Then, in all that is really important — that is, what is moral — I am not a mere machine, under a general law; and you would persuade me God is, and cannot help Himself, nor act freely in respect of my freedom! I am free, and He is not. Then certainly I am God, not He. Now, general laws give me no revelation of God personally; and when I enter into detail, I am lost even as to my conclusions. My conscience tells me He must be good. But I look around and see misery, evil; men worshipping Jupiter, Venus, Pluto; men in every degradation that human nature is capable of; babes in torture, grown man in sin, oppression; and a groaning creation. Is that a general law? Where is the goodness? There is another world, you tell me. Perhaps; I hope so. Will the oppressor, the seducer, the corrupter, the tyrant be there? What proof have you? Your instinct tells you so. Is that all you have to comfort me? Has the instinct of men given them any clear idea of it? Had the heathen such? Are life and incorruptibility brought to light anywhere? In theory, a God of mere general laws is a dead God for me as to present moral relationship; and, when I turn to facts, I see it is false, or evil must be a general law too.

163 Now, where there is One who reveals the truth and works miracles, I am brought into relationship with a God who acts personally, so that I know Him. I see what He is, what He is about. He is righteous, He is love. He thought it worth while to come down into a world full of misery, which man's free will had brought in, to shew Himself good in it, more mighty than the evil, to reveal Himself as a resource, to make Himself known, on the one hand, and to make the moral revelation of Himself in the truth valid to the hearts of men paramount to all prejudices, on the other. If it be love, it cannot be a general law. Not that love is not the general law of God's nature, as I said; but love in exercise must have its occasion — suited occasion; must be free, or it is not love. But if God acts in this world to make Himself known, He thereby works miracles; for God's acting thus is a miracle. He does not contradict, does not suspend, the general law as a law. Men die as they died before; nay, they died again if He raised them; but He acted by a power which was not subject to the general law, because He is God, taking an individual out of it by His own power, without touching the law. The queen does not abrogate a law when she pardons. That power is part of a more general law. The most general law of all is, that God is always God — cannot act contrary to Himself; but can always act as God when He pleases. Thus I know Him — His own mind, spirit, disposition, interest in man, goodness, love. I know what sin is thereby; for it is departure of will from Him.

164 But, unless this new school deny all the truth of Christianity, their theory of general laws is wholly false. Is the resurrection by God's power or not? Does man rise of himself by some common law of his nature, or is the resurrection the fruit of the intervention of God in power? If so, the system of general laws adduced against miraculous Christianity is all nonsense. God does interfere by power, freely, to bring the great result of moral dealings to an issue. Besides, the theory of judging by general laws is false in principle. It takes man's experience of the physical course of things (for that this world is an adequate witness of God's moral government, though there is one, is a horrible lie) as the sole and absolute measure of what God is and can do. What proof is there of this? I am told it is complete. It is not; morally, it is no such thing: and your experience of what God is in the laws of the universe is no adequate measure of what God is. But, I repeat, miracles are a far more real revelation of God Himself than general laws, moral revelation. I am not personally in relationship with God by general laws; I am by free miracles, not done necessarily on me or for me, but in which God's free action shews what God personally is in His actings. I ask if Christ's miracles did not do this? — did not shew the intervention of God in goodness in a world of misery? There are instances of judgment when it was to deliver others, and that is part of the character of God, permitted displays of Satan's power, that we might know it. Why are any of them inherently incredible? Who is the judge — man's experience? Nonsense! He cannot have an experience of miracles. It is merely saying There can't be because there can't be; because I do not think God ought to do them. You do not. What is incredible? Was God not powerful enough to do them? You cannot say that. Was He not good enough? Ah! that is perhaps what is incredible to you. I thank God it is not for me.

165 But, if in a world of misery God was winning the confidence of men's hearts to His goodness, what more credible than miracles? i.e., extraordinary displays of power, sufficient to shew God's intervention, so that men might know not only that evil was not of Him, but that He had come to man's help as good. That may be incredible for the new school; they may study the movements of Jupiter, and speculate on the fall of empires, as based on general laws; but a personal God of goodness they do not like to know. It has inherent incredibility for them. But there is no personal relationship with God without it. I delight in the thought of seeing God manifested here below, spending Himself to win the confidence of hearts who as offenders were afraid, and using the very wretchedness they were in by sin to draw their hearts to God out of it. True, it was inherently incredible to Pharisees and Sadducees then. He could not be of God; He did not keep the Sabbath. They were grieved that the apostles taught the resurrection. But Jesus cared for the poor of the flock, and, in spite of the Pharisees, would win by speaking "as never man spake," and doing so that "it was never seen on that fashion." If power acting in goodness to win the hearts of the poor to God is inherently incredible, I know where the heart is to whom it is so. Such, then, is the place of miracles. The abiding thing is the truth of the being of that personal objective God who is revealed by their means. Miracles are a means of knowledge as evidence. The truth, and the Son, who is the truth, revealing the Father, revealing God, is that which is evidenced.

W. Do you admit what Hippolytus says, that miracles are useless when unbelief ceases?

H. I do not in an absolute way. They are useless as evidence; but, as being the fruit and exhibition of the power and love of God, they remain always the object of increased delight: and in Christ's miracles it is impossible to separate His ways and feelings and thoughts from them, when we have any detail. Have you not felt this?

W. Surely I have. I admit fully the justice of your remark, and it helps to judge of the nature of these signs.

H. Miracles, then, have a double character. They are confirmatory signs graciously given, and, especially Christian miracles, a present witness of the intervention of power in grace. Where Christianity is believed and professed, so far as they are proofs, they lose their importance, are out of place. So far as they have the second character, the record of them (which is here supposed to be received) is a witness to the heart that God is come in to help, and how He is come in. The word alone reveals this directly as revelation. At any time faith founded on miracles was nothing worth, because miracles do not quicken. We are begotten by the word of truth, and so children by faith. When believed only by reason of miracles, the Lord did not trust Himself to them; He knew what was in man. As removing opposing hindrances in the mind, and strengthening man against unbelief, they are precious to our compound nature. There is much that removes unbelief, acts on our old nature (even solid reasoning does), that does not give faith nor a new nature; but removes the opposition of nature, and silences it, and attracts the heart. This if alone is nothing; there must be something positively new which a man cannot give himself, and which no proof produces.

166 W. You believe, then, in a really new nature and life which man receives?

H. Undoubtedly. It is a first principle, and one of the main vital questions of the day. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Except we are so, we cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Of His own will begat He us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. Infidelity seeks to set up man as he is, will accept Christ if He serves for that. The doctrine of scripture is that there is a Second man, a last Adam; and as is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

W. But miracles now have to be proved, instead of being proofs.

H. There is truth in that. We have not now to do with heathenism and Judaism (I mean in our present inquiries, for we know with delight there are missionaries to tell Christ's blessed grace to them). When we meet with infidelity now, it has the character of apostasy and antagonism. It may be open as in the last century, or covert, as in this, but it has essentially this character. Early opposition was not apostasy; nor did it, indeed, deny the miracles; they were too recent. They ascribe them, as Celsus, to magic, or cited Apollonius Tyanaeus as having wrought such too; or the Jews to magic learnt in Egypt, and the theft of the Shem hammaphoresh out of the temple. Still that was antagonism, and had to be so treated. Now it is more. It is apostasy in principle, and has to be treated as such; covert I admit, using Christ's name, but only so much the worse. Christianity has been publicly admitted as the religion of God, its record accepted as the record of God, miracles and all; and then men begin to cavil and oppose and undermine, not being honest enough to throw it off, or sometimes happily kept back by spiritual instinct; but, as a system, it is apostasy in principle. Hence there is less hope, and the record has to be proved, objections answered, miracles to be proved, not a proof. In this case we must shew their folly as reasoners, and trust to the word, if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. For them I should look much more to the power of the word in grace. If the record have power in them, they will see the miracles with it, and the perfect beauty and suitableness of them in such a revelation of God. Proofs may shew the absurdity of doubts, and so far are useful. They may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, but cannot give faith. Of this we have sufficiently spoken, and I suppose of general principles so delighted in by Dr. Williams. One soon sees there is not the soberness of inquiry, but delight in one like Bunsen, who, he thinks, may aid in overthrowing scripture as a divine record. You will soon see how little they are to be trusted. I may not be able to answer every objection; but if I find a man make a hundred, and ninety-nine are shallow and foundationless, and his will pierces in it all, I am not much troubled with the weight of the hundredth. Facts and principles will both come before us.

167 W. Proceed.

H. We have spoken of Abraham and Egyptian dates as one great battle-horse of Bunsen and his uncritical admirers. Asia was only alluded to. I would now touch on it. It is known from Layard that Assyrian monuments have largely confirmed scripture history. It is interesting, though of course no ground of faith. But then we are in historic periods, and it is pretty plain sailing, with difficulties in arranging names and dates incidental to ancient times and human accounts of them. I speak here of profane history, and the connection of Babylonish and Assyrian history. This is not touched on in the Review. But more ancient days are of course obscure, and here our Bunsens revel, and evoke the spirits of empires. But we will follow them there: not to prove all with certainty — that no man can do as to these empires with the remains we possess and the imperfect knowledge of them — but to prove that Bunsen's admired assertions are foundationless, wholly so, and against the documents we have. "He also contends," says Dr. Williams, "that Abraham's horizon in Asia is antecedent to the first Median conquest of Babylon in 2234" Let us examine this. He puts, we have seen, Abraham's descent into Egypt in 2876; his departure from Ur, of course, many years earlier.

168 The question is this: the observations of the Chaldeans, according to Berosus, give 2234 for their commencement; 1903* from Alexander the Great. The length of the second dynasty is lost from the MS. The rest are there, or in modern history. From these we have 224 (lost), 458 (2nd Chaldean), 245, 526 Assyrian, and from other sources 209. Then Babylon was taken by Cyrus; that is, after 34,080 Mythic Chaldean, we have

224 Median.

- Chaldean.

458 Chaldean.

245 Arab.

526 Assyrian.

209 Do. and Babylonian.

All the dynasties to Cyrus 1,662 + lost dynasty.

208 Persian.

All the dynasties to Alexander 1,870 + lost dynasty.

{*If we include the Median, or first historic dynasty, in the 1903 years of observations alleged by Berosus, then the duration of the first historical Chaldean is only 34 years. But I certainly judge the other scheme preferable.}

The Chaldean observations reached to 2234 before Christ, 1903 years before Alexander. The date of Callisthenes' visit being 331 before Christ, the third (second historical) dynasty must be added to complete the term. Cyrus was about 538 before Christ; 1662+538 =2200. If we add 258 for the dynasty missing from the MS, the first Chaldean, we have 2458 for the whole; but the first was Median, not Babylonish, if at Babylon: hence, subtracting 224 (2458 - 224), we have 2234, exactly the alleged period of Babylonish astronomical observations; these Chaldeans being known observers of planetary movements in connection with their idolatry, which the Medians were not, so that it is unlikely the 2234 years of observations extend to their time. That is, the known date of Alexander, added to the alleged duration of stellar observations, agrees with the length of dynasties exactly, if we leave out the first which was not Chaldean, and give 258 to the lost one. Some would count back from Cyrus, because the empire was then transferred from Babylon to Susa. Bunsen finds the name of Zoroaster, and connects 2234 with the first Median dynasty; but this is far less likely as it was not religiously or historically probable. Not religiously, for the planet-gazers were the Chaldeans; not historically, as, though Babylon had fallen as the imperial race in Cyrus' time, the priests' observations were given to Callisthenes at Babylon. Such is the judgment of the ablest German critics. It does not affect much our enquiry. I know Bunsen attempts to deny a Euphratean Cush; but his notion is contrary to all testimony of history, names, and accounts of races and their movements. I shall therefore take this system. It is Niebuhr's and other Germans he quotes, as well as Rawlinson's, and a German whom he quotes; quite admitting that, though the proofs are remarkably strong, in these ancient dates and readings there is uncertainty. That is, the Median, not idolatrous as the Chaldees, was the first historic kingdom; then a Chaldean. Of this the earliest known monarch, Urukh, has left his name on the foundation of the earliest cities of Lower Babylonia, Ur (or Mogheir), Warka (probably Erech), Senkereh (Larsa), and Niffer. Here first idolatry is found — the worship of sun, moon, and planets. He calls himself king of Ur, and Kinsi Akkad — a supposed ethnical or national designation. Erech and Akkad are mentioned in Genesis. We have a known date of a king Ismidagon from an inscription of Tiglath-Pileser, which places him in 1861. This is, say, 340 years after Urukh.

169 When Babylon was founded does not appear from the monuments that I am aware of. The astronomical observations date from 2234. This, which is the date of Berosus, is not only from him, but from Callisthenes, a Greek, but probably from the same sources. Others seem to confirm it. And, 1861, or Ismidagon, being ascertained with some precision, we have bricks with the names of kings not doubted to be anterior to Ismidagon. Babylon does not appear on these. About 1750 Naramsin reigned there. Merodach Namana is the first who has been found named king of Babylon somewhat later. But we have seen the records at Babylon go to the beginning of the kingdom exactly according to the chronology adopted by the ablest enquirers, as preserved there, B.C. 331.

It is evident the kings changed their capitals. Werka was probably, it is thought, Ereck. Akkad we find Urukh king of Senkereh is Larsa in the monuments, supposed to be Ellasar. I need not enter into further details here. This will give an idea of dates. Language is a difficult medium of proof, because probably Turanic or Turano-Aryan (for there are Aryan words), Hamite and Semitic terms are mixed in the vocabulary; and the cuneiform signs represent, it appears, all. Afterwards Semitic prevailed in Assyria; but the older forms being preserved apparently as sacred, what seems older is sometimes more recent. I now turn to Abraham. A king is found on the bricks of not exactly ascertained date; but very early indeed in the above dates, part of whose name is the same as Chedorlaomer's — perhaps the whole — and who is called the Ravager of the West (ravager being questionable, west certain). There are probabilities from names that he was connected with Susa or Elam, but of a Cushite race. The great Chaldean empire of Berosus begins 1976 before Christ. The first lasted from 2234 to 1976. Chedorlaomer, if the name be right, comes somewhat later; not the first king of it. Scripture Hebrew chronology puts the arrival of Abraham in Canaan about the year 1922 before Christ; 54 years after the beginning of the first idolatrous kingdom: but he had been some years in Canaan, and been down to Egypt, when Chedorlaomer arrived, so that that was perhaps ten years later — perhaps 1915 before Christ — that is, Chedorlaomer was 61 years after Berosus' date of the setting up of the second Chaldean empire. Now Abraham comes from Ur, because idolatry was there; and the dates agree with the common date given to Abraham; the cause of his being called of God existing at that time, as is demonstrated; that is, idolatry was established. Indeed, it is at this epoch, it appears, that the Semitic races spread and left Chaldea, though not all escaped the idolatry, as we see in Assyria. But the date of 2876 for Abraham given by Bunsen, with an Asiatic horizon, is in any case long before any historical data whatever. It is in the fabulous addition of 34,080 years (or 33,091 invented probably, as Bunsen himself supposes, to make up 36,000 — the first lunar, the second reduced by Eusebius to solar years). Nor could it be exactly said the Medians worshipped other gods. They worshipped one under the symbol of fire. The date Bunsen gives for Abraham, to indulge his fancy as to what ought to be as to Israel, and his mistaken chronology from Manetho unverified by monuments, is about a thousand years too soon, according to all that can probably be ascertained from monuments; and these monuments shew scripture to be right. No one can pretend to precision, but all the data we have prove that Bunsen indulged his imagination. I proceed to other points, concluding with Dr. Williams that Bunsen's details on some (and nearly all) these points are sufficiently doubtful to afford ground of attack; and with all due deference, that we are most logically and rationally free to more than distrust his conclusions, instead of holding them for certain when his premises are false, and the fruit of his imagination.

171 W. The character of his views seems to me pretty clear. It is simple idealism, and running a principle of his own to excess, and not sober research; merely using a mass of reading to controvert scripture, not to ascertain the truth.

H. Simply that. I proceed. Take another instance of careful research, cited by Dr. Williams, used to prove, what I have noticed, that the slaying of the first-born was by Bedouin Arabs, most choice in the effect of their successful inroad; only it is a wonder they did not carry off, in their razzia, the first-born of cattle. Perhaps they ate them; but the proof is, that it is, as the pestilence of the Book of Kings becomes in Chronicles, the more visible angel. Now, this is a mere dream. I suppose he means Samuel (called Kings in the LXX). But it is alike called a pestilence and an angel, both in Samuel and Chronicles (1 Chr. 21:14, 15; 2 Sam. 24:15-17). In the case of Sennacherib, it is called an angel simply in Kings and Chronicles.

W. But this shews great carelessness. It is trifling.

H. Yes; trifling with truth. Never trust the alleged facts of this school. Make that a rule: I have learnt it by experience. Mark the excessive looseness of Dr. Williams in what follows: "It is no serious objection that Egyptian authorities continue the reign of Manephthah later." All these reigns in Egyptian authorities are confusion itself as to their length; but let that pass. Its objection means here no objection to Exodus 15. "A greater difficulty is, that we find but three centuries left us from the exodus to Solomon's temple." Here the difficulty is in Bunsen's scheme. Nothing can exceed the carelessness of the article; but this very carelessness is employed to cast a slur on the chronology of the Judges. "The uncertainty and popular character of which makes the difficulty [in Bunsen's scheme] of no moment." We are told the numbers in the book of Judges proceed by the eastern round number of 40. Now, it is possible that in the East they say — though I am not aware of it — (it is a sacred number, whatever its import) "this forty years," as we say, "this hundred years," which may be given in round numbers, though I see no reason to think so. In the case of the wilderness and David's race determinative details making forty years are given; in one oppression also. But we have thirteen other oppressions or judges of precise dates. One thing that has misled most computers of the dates of Judges is, that they have not seen that Samson and Eli are expressly during the oppression of the Philistines, and that Samuel and Saul are for a long time together. But these are details for enquiry, as every one recognizes.

172 When it is said, "Baron Bunsen feels himself compelled to see growth in the Pentateuch, and he makes it Mosaic, as embodying the mind of Moses rather than written by his hand," one can only say it is very little matter what he makes of it. A great part of it professes to give direct communications from God. They are true or false. The style is confessedly the earliest Hebrew as shewn by the use of hu for hi, nahar for nahara. That it was edited by Ezra and others may be very likely. That, and its being done by the great Sanhedrim in his day, is an old Jewish tradition, and may have so far general truth in it, as some such work of editing may have been called for after the return from the captivity. Josephus distinctly rests all on the authentication by the prophets, and hence owns none after Artaxerxes as scripture. This accords with what we read in the historical parts.

What Dr. Williams means by "the whole literature grew like a tree rooted in the various thoughts of successive generations," I do not know. If he means that they modified the older books continually as their habits changed, it is the most improbable absurd idea of any nation, and particularly for the Jews, and especially with books which they disobeyed, and which reprove and reproach them, as these do, which yet they held as sacred, coming from God Himself (persecuting the prophets, too, because they spoke so plain). There cannot be conceived anything more improbable or more purely an imagination, contradicting all the facts, than this gratuitous theory. That Moses and Joshua, for certain historical events, used popular documents — as Paul Grecian poets — is stated in scripture. That Moses may, under God's guidance, have used others which are not stated, is very possible. The question for us is, Was he guided of God, so that what we have is scripture? For this we have the authority of Christ and the apostles (which I suppose has little weight with Dr. Williams), and, I may add, the divinely given conviction of every child of God, and of every saint under the Old Testament too.

All the theories of Jehovistic and Elohistic documents are the merest claptrap; we have only to examine the passages to see their fallacy. We have spoken of Genesis 1, 2, and need not return to it. The history of Noah equally proves the perfect absurdity of it. I repeat, all through scripture, Jehovah is the name of relationship, as Almighty and Father are, and stated so to be; God, the simple name of the divine Being.

173 Again, I read here, somewhat to my astonishment, "When the fierce ritual of Syria, with the awe of a divine voice, bade Abraham slay his son, he did not reflect that he had no perfect theory of the absolute to justify him in departing from traditional revelation, but trusted that the Father, whose voice from heaven he heard at heart, was better pleased with mercy than with sacrifice; and his trust 'was his righteousness.'"

W. What!

H. You may well say "what!" Only, it is well to let these people talk, to shew what their talking is worth. How does the good man know there was such an event? Why, from the history; and yet to please his fancied wisdom, he upsets every fact and principle of the history.

Abraham had been called out from his country and traditions in the most absolute way by the "God of glory." Gen. 17:5. He was not a Syrian idolater, and never worshipped with them, but had his tent and his altar apart: that is the gist of his whole history, its essence. It has no meaning else. It was not a traditional revelation for him; he had a theory of the absolute to justify him, both at first in departing from all idolatry, and now in not returning to the ritual of Syria. God had revealed Himself to him. The Syrian ritual had no divine voice for him; and instead of finding righteousness in not sacrificing his son, when the awe of a divine voice from fierce devils bade him, the whole point of the story is that he was blessed, because he did not withhold him. So the story states. It has no other meaning; and so James reasons in his epistle, and the epistle to the Hebrews quotes it as his glory.

They had better make popular stories for their views, a new Mormon Bible of their own, than edit such senseless stuff as this. It is a good specimen of rational literature. His comment on it is this: "So in each case we trace principles of reason and right, to which our heart perpetually responds, and our response to which is a truer sign of faith than such a deference to a supposed external authority as would quench these principles themselves."

I quote this that you may remark the object which we detect throughout — the substitution of man's judgment, and what philosophers have called moral sense, for obedience to God; the putting them in contrast, so as to make a revelation needless, or an evil, because it is external. The λόγος, or word, may be allowed to work in man, in man's mind; hence man, as he is, is sufficient, but no word from God allowed. It quenches the natural conscience. Now, there is a conscience; but all history declares, and every-day life confirms, that it is not competent to guide man, and that man is wicked, and naturally hates the light because he is, and is in darkness if there is no revelation. All history proves it. Now, Christianity owns this conscience, but brings God in grace, and perfect light, into contact with it. And this is what they object to — in a becoming spirit, they tell us. But, in fact, in the passage I quote from Dr. Williams, their avowed aim is to resist a revelation of God external to man's mind, and claiming obedience.

174 Now, it is an unhappy — I had better say happy — instance in which to make such a remark. No honest man can controvert that the whole and sole meaning of this history of Abraham is, that absolute deference to external authority was claimed, at the sacrifice of all natural affections in the case of an only son, and, what was more, in giving up all the promises lodged in his person. And this shewed absolute faith in God's faithful goodness. Abraham, as the epistle to the Hebrews tells us, was sure God must give him Isaac back, if even He raised him; for God would fulfil His promises, and fulfil them in him. When the sacrifice of self was made (for it is always self), God did not allow the sacrifice.

W. The contrast of principles between scripture and this school is as clear as day, and their desire to get rid of God revealing Himself — the one great blessing of our souls — in order to exalt man and his moral competency. It is war against revelation, and against obedience; for simply knowing or doing right is not obedience. And they resist the claim of God to obedience, as well as the revelation of God in grace. This exclusion of God is dreadful, and clearly proves what they will. It is moral wickedness in character, and here shews itself in direct opposition to the mind of scripture. The effort to give the character they wish to scripture is contemptible (happy, I agree with you), because it shews what their state of mind, and what their reasonings, are worth.

H. We will proceed to some other remarks; for, as Dr. Williams speaks of scripture, we must meet him in detail.

"The famous Shiloh is taken in its local sense as the Sanctuary where the young Samuel was trained; which, if doctrinal perversions did not interfere, hardly any one would doubt to be the true sense."

175 The sentence is this: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, till Shiloh come." Gen. 49:10

What the training of the young Samuel has to do with it I cannot tell. If it refer to this, it is still a prophecy; but, I should judge, a prophecy very badly interpreted. It seems to me it is very irrational to suppose that it is a divinely inspired prophecy about the name of the place where the young Samuel was trained, because the tabernacle was there. What is "till Shiloh come?" — and yet more, "to him shall the gathering of the peoples be?" What has that to do with the place the young Samuel was trained in? It is not "people" (fancy might have spoken of the tabernacle so), but "peoples." But the truth is, this use of Shiloh for the name of the place is a modern Jewish opposition to the faith of Jesus being the Messiah. All the old Jewish interpreters referred this to Messiah with one consent, though the root of the word be disputed. R. Lipmann first proposed to read it, till they come to Shiloh; as in 1 Samuel 4:12, where the words are so translated, and this a certain Teller in the last century defended, applying it to the fact in Joshua, that at the close of the wars they pitched the tabernacle in Shiloh, and then Judah ceased to have the lead which had been given him in Numbers in the wilderness, Reuben and Gad left, etc. This interpretation has been adopted by the rationalists, as Eichhorn, Ammon, Bleek, Tuch, etc., denying any application to the Messiah. The soberest and best Hebrew scholars, even rationalists, take it as referring to peace, and see Messiah in it as Prince of Peace, as the sceptre signifies dominion. They do so on Hebrew grounds, without troubling themselves about prophecy and its fulfilment. It is also translated, till he, Judah, come to rest; seeing in it the full accomplishment of the promises to Israel when the nations of the earth will be subject; some adding the coming to Shiloh, when the land was distributed as a first instalment and turning-point; because Israel got its rest of promise in first provisional fulfilment there.

Now, these questions of interpretation I cannot enter into here. The objections of some, as Kurz, to a personal Messiah being as yet the subject of prophecy, are null. It is said this was not within view of the faith of the patriarchs. That is a mistake; the Lord Himself says, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." In principle, I see nothing to object to in seeing a germinant accomplishment in responsible Israel, to be fully accomplished in their final glory with Messiah. That the chapter is a pretended prophecy after the event, has been shewn to be absurd on the face of it, for the statements are, in almost every particular, such as no one speaking from the events could have made. You must always bear in mind that these rationalists never search even whether a passage may be a prophecy. They start with the assertion, there can be none, and then seek to shew how the passage may have otherwise arisen. In this case the absurdity of their notions lies on the surface. Jacob declares that he speaks of the end of days, that this goes on to the full final blessing of Israel; and the gathering of the nations is therefore the natural interpretation for those who believe in prophecy and the divine inspiration of scripture.

176 That there was a provisional bringing in of blessing, and the first proposal of it on Israel's responsibility in the first coming of Christ, is the belief of all Christians, and the express teaching of Peter in Acts 3 — now put off till Israel repent (while the Church is being gathered, and yet to be fulfilled), and then to be accomplished by a glorious intervention in the last days, I have no doubt. And Judah is preserved as a tribe (I do not see more necessarily in "Shebet") for that day. It certainly never will be fulfilled till then. It has had, in the progressive development of Israel's history, preparatory events. To make It Samuel's training place is simple nonsense.

It is a question whether the name be not itself given from the fact of Joshua's sitting down there to distribute the conquered land. The point difficult to receive from the words is Israel's coming to Shiloh; either it is, "until rest come," or "until Judah come to Shiloh;" if not, the sentence is broken off, and there is no antecedent to "come." It is people, "they," as the French "on," with no one mentioned before. If the ancient interpretations, Targums, etc., which all take it as Messiah, be not received, it is, "till rest come," or "till Judah come to rest." The words, "to him shall the gathering of the peoples be," is the difficulty then. If it be not translated "till Shiloh come," the gathering will be to Judah, looked at as representing the people, as Judah did, and specially the stock of the house of David and Christ, in contrast with the ten tribes. That the people first should be the vessel of God's testimony, and Messiah take their place on their failure, and gather the peoples, is the distinct declaration of prophecy. It is fully developed in Isaiah 49, where Messiah declares He has laboured in vain, if it be Israel; and then His gathering the remnant of Israel and the nations is fully set forth, going on to the rest and glory of Israel. It is the great subject of prophecy — Messiah taking up the promise as a faithful servant when Israel had failed. Hence He is the true Vine, as Israel was the old vine but was fruitless, or bore wild grapes. Bunsen's and Dr. Williams view is too puerile to pay attention to.

177 The alleged "Bible before our Bible is indicated . . . rather than proved as it might be." This merely means the old story of Jehovistic and Elohistic elements, book of Jasher, book of the wars of the Lord, of which we have spoken. It may be seen expanded elaborately, as to the former, in De Wette, after many others, and is, I hesitate not to say, contrary to fact, and pure ignorance. Take Genesis 6, indeed the whole account of the flood, and see if any man with his senses, without a theory to support, could make two documents — one with God, the other with Jehovah. Joshua also has referred to documents, to prove the truth of what he said to unbelieving enemies of Israel; so Jephthah used it against Ammon. The Kings and Chronicles constantly refer to the public records. This only says that the prophetic Spirit used but did not copy them. The statement of a bible before the Bible has no kind of ground whatever. We are told, "he rightly rejects the perversions which make the Psalms evangelically inspired." Who ever thought they were? Why is "evangelically" thrust in? Who ever supposed the Psalms were the gospel? The Psalms refer to the government of God, not to His intervention in grace, save as delivering Israel. For this their enemies must be destroyed, and this they look for. But it has nothing to do with the Christian now. He has "to do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently." The Jews in the latter day will look for their oppressing enemies to be destroyed when God comes in; and He will answer their cry. Jerome and Augustine I leave to answer for themselves; only their imagination was moderate compared with the system we are enquiring into. I admit fully the absurdity of much patristic interpretation; but calling Chaldeans demons, whose instruments they were, is not more absurd than saying: "the Father" (Semitic): Japetic interpretation: the eternal will of the realization of good in man (eternal decree of election). The Son: Man, mankind (Jesus and children of God) struggling with self for the realization of good in time. In an eminent degree Jesus of Nazareth as the conscious realization of God's goodness. "Man, the Son of man:" The finite realization of the Spirit of God as good in individual consciousness developed in time. "Resurrection:" The awakening of the consciousness of this divine life in the soul. "Eternal life:" The divine element in man's ethical life as union with God's will in time.

178 W. But whose interpretations are these strange bewilderments of mind?

H. Baron Bunsen's last improved.

W. Is it possible? It is well to know what kind of mind we are dealing with. I am not surprised at his idealizing history too, having his siege written before the history of it comes

H. It was the Alexandrian manner of interpreting; and came into the church. It is very absurd, save in so far as facts carry moral ideas in them. As to Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament, It is insisted that they refer partly to a present historical sense. This is not true of all. It is introduced here, as a great admission of the orthodox bishops, and I know not whom, as a discovery now forced on people which is to undermine these prophecies. As to the greater part of them, I do not doubt the principle at all. All Christians, since scripture has been studied, with a very few exceptions, have so understood them, applying the principle with more or less intelligence. God in goodness, who had announced from the outset a deliverance and a deliverer, when dealing with details, encouraged faith — present faith — by prophecies which had application then, but expressed the mind of God, which saw to the end of the vista; clothed it in language which went back to the original promise, and surrounded it with dearer light. God wrought in present deliverance, and encouraged hope. The prophets acted as revealers of His mind in this, but kept alive with growing light the hope of the full deliverance yet to come; so that the prophets searched into the meaning of their own prophecies, and saw it was not for them but for us But all this is so little new, that it is a principle laid down by Lord Bacon, who calls them germinant prophecies. Deliverance is promised as to Sennacherib, but the Holy Ghost takes occasion to point to a final deliverance from the Assyrian in the latter days Both were important, and both given.

If Paley could only find one Messianic prophecy, he was very ignorant of scripture. I do not say that none have an inferior application to circumstances, or that the prophet does not rise from circumstances to be "rapt into future times;" but if it be meant that there is but one prophecy in which the Holy Spirit meant to point out Christ, it is utterly false.

179 Baron Bunsen admits no prophecy, but a kind of second sight — a spirit of prognostication in man, in which he is fallible, but conceives future things. The rationalist school deny all prophecy.

But take the Psalms: Psalm 2 is prophetic of Christ; Psalm 16 is; Psalm 22 is; Ps. 69, Ps. 72, Ps. 102, Ps. 110 are. I do not say that some part of some of these may not have had a partial application to other sufferers or triumphs. But they have Messiah directly in view. Many others rise up to His case while dealing in divine sympathy, more generally with the suffering remnant, whose place and part He took. But these speak directly of Him; some of Him only. For this we have the authority of Christ and the apostles. I am aware that is nothing with this school; but it is with Christians something. They think Paul, and Peter, and the records divinely given us of Christ, on which Christianity is authentically founded, are of more authority than Dr. Williams; for, soberly, that is the question. Can any one but a neologist doubt that Isaiah 8:13 to Isaiah 9:7 connects, and is meant to connect, the present circumstances of Israel with a great future deliverance by a glorious personage who meanwhile is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence? that is, encourages Israel in those days in their distress, but goes on to an alleged glorious deliverance hereafter, when the distress should be yet greater, but a deliverer there? I say alleged. I am not enquiring here whether it be false or true, whether it was a fanatic prophet, holding out hopes of false deliverance, or the Holy Ghost predicting sure events; but I say, the prophet (or impostor) meant — though connecting it with present events — to encourage the people with the hopes of a glorious deliverer in future times, but who would be a stone of stumbling meanwhile, and who would have disciples. The character and terms of the prophecy prove it could not be an impostor; they are too detailed, and speak too much of the evil of Israel. But, be the prophet what he may, I say, a man wants either sense or honesty who will attempt to deny that the alleged prophet intended to point out a mighty future deliverer, who is said to be Jehovah, long hiding His face from the house of Israel, a sanctuary or refuge, but a stone of stumbling, and then a public deliverer in battles of fire. An unbeliever may deny Christianity, and any accomplishment.

If we begin by taking for granted it cannot be, we may spare ourselves the trouble of proving it is not. As a Christian, I believe a part is accomplished — the last part clearly not until Christ comes again. All I say now is, that here is a passage which, referring to Israel's fears then and connecting the testimony with present facts, goes on through a series of alleged events to the time of a great deliverer, of the increase of whose government there will be no end, on the throne of David. Let it be a false prophecy or a true one, it is a prophecy, and a prophecy of Jehovah's being a sanctuary, a stone of stumbling, having disciples, the breaking of Israel on the stone of stumbling, to which the Lord and Peter apply this, and then a triumphant deliverer.

180 I will now take another character of prophecy referred to — the servant; shewing that Israel is taken up as the servant, and replaced by Christ, who will deliver the remnant as again servants of Jehovah, who had long, as we have seen, hidden His face. I take this the rather as Dr. Williams has referred to it. Isaiah 42 says, "My servant whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. A bruised reed shall he not break," &c. This we know is formally applied to Christ in the Gospels. In verse 19, and more distinctly and definitely in Isaiah 43:1-10, the servant is Israel. In Isaiah 49 this is again declared in express terms, "Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." Then says one, If that be so, I have laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought and in vain; and then goes on, "And now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant, Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of Jehovah, and my God shall be my strength." His judgment was with Jehovah, and His work with His God. Then comes the answer, "It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, and to be my salvation to the end of the earth." Yet afterwards Israel is brought back, and Zion is remembered and glorified, and kings her nursing fathers.

Now here I have Israel a servant, apparently a total failure, because they are not gathered by a person who appears on the scene to do it, yet declares His work owned. Then the Gentiles brought in (a passage which Paul uses for his ministry); and then, after all, Israel restored and blessed. Now I am not saying again whether this is a false prophecy, or a true one; but it is there — was there — as a prophecy before the time, is not yet all accomplished certainly, but speaks of Israel as a servant supplanted by another who fails in gathering Israel, and turns to the Gentiles, and looks on to the end then even for Israel. It is (true or false) Messianic, predicts one who seems to fail — outwardly does as to Israel, and then turns to the Gentiles. It is used by Paul in Luke's account in the Acts, and by himself in 2 Corinthians; the former to authorize his turning to the Gentiles, the latter to the gospel time, 2 Corinthians 6:2. Every one can judge whether Christianity, or the ribaldry of the Neologists and the idealism of Baron Bunsen most justly meet the statements in it. At any rate they are there. A man may reject prophecy, or say it is not fulfilled; but he who says there is not avowed prophecy, and prophecy of Israel's future glory (and glory through a glorious deliverer, commonly called Messiah), is not an honest man, or is in wilful blindness.

181 I will take up Isaiah 53 by itself as so important; but see Isaiah 59:16-21, and all 60. Now I am not arguing for their truth now, much as I believe it; I only say they exist.

W. I understand you. It is a vital point; because if they exist, which Dr. Williams attempts but hardly dares to deny, we should soon be brought to the conviction, not that all interpreters of course are right (for I apprehend, for my own part, that when Zion and Jerusalem are turned into the Church, you must make confusion, though there may be some analogies); but that in fact God has accomplished in part what He has prophesied of beforehand.

H. And remark, I insist on the truth of what they make an objection of, namely, that there is the connection with present circumstances in Israel; that God had foretold a deliverance by the Seed of the woman; and then, when the world had fallen into idolatry, which no one can deny, chose out a people to preserve the knowledge of the one true God, Jehovah, and made them the centre of His earthly government: as it is said, "When the Most High [His universal name of dominion over the earth and all powers] divided to the nations their inheritance; when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For Jehovah's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." Deut. 32:8. This did not set aside the promise made before, though for a time He suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. But the promises as to the earth centred in Israel as a people. When the fulness of time was come, the promised deliverer came and presented Himself to Israel as a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God. Israel is not gathered. He is a stone of stumbling. Then the promises centre, as we have seen, in Christ. Israel has voluntarily forfeited them, and ceases for a time, save by the hiding of God's face from them, to be the centre of His earthly government, and remain, as we know, without their own religion, and without a false one.

182 Meanwhile believers are called to follow a rejected Lord, take up their cross, and have their treasure in heaven. Though not a sparrow falls without our Father, and all is under God's hand, yet it is not the time of God's direct government in respect of an earthly people. In due time God declares He will take up the Jews and Israel again; and while the saints who have suffered will have a heavenly portion, the earth will be governed in peace. But this will be introduced by a time of evil, tribulation, and judgment.

Now the prophecies all declare this, and we must not confound the government of the earth (and the promises made to the Jews and connected with it) with our heavenly hopes. God does not prophesy of heaven, but of events in the earth. These prophecies, while the Jews were connected with the present government of God, were addressed to them to warn and encourage them then; but God, knowing what they were, went on to the end, to the infallible accomplishment of His purpose, knowing that what rested on man's responsibility must fail. Hence prophecies do apply largely at the time, only they go often on to the end; and are all a part of this large general scheme — are not of private interpretation, and not only as to Messiah, but as to Jews and Gentiles, all whose history and circumstances at the close of the world's history are much more fully gone into than the circumstances of the day. Christ's humiliation is spoken of, His rejection, as we have seen; but then prophecy, as it speaks of the government of the world, once He is gone on high, passes over to His future re-appearing in the world's government: for this was the subject of prophecy. Hence Christ and the apostles leave out often the last part of a prophecy — it belongs to the end of the present order of the world — and stop at its first coming or its effects. Thus Christ says "To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord," but does not add "the day of vengeance of our God:" this is to come Isa. 61:2. So Paul, quoting Psalm 68, says "He hath received gifts for men," but does not add "Yea, even for the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them." This will be true when Israel is restored in the latter day.

Take another prophecy cavilled at — Micah's prophecy; one, perhaps, as I have found, that strikes a Jew the most. Dr. Williams represents Baron Bunsen so as that, if he would quote Micah as designating Bethlehem for the birth-place of Messiah, he cannot shut his eyes to the fact that the deliverer who was to come from thence was to be a contemporary shield against the Assyrian. Why is "contemporary" added? Contemporary with what? Where is there a word in the passage about contemporary? This is dishonest.

183 Micah 4, which precedes it, and is the same prophecy, after denouncing Jerusalem, and declaring that she shall be ploughed as a field, declares that in the last days all shall be changed, and the mountain of Jehovah's house established on the tops of the mountains, and exalted above the hills; and the peoples (not "people" — a frequent unhappy mistake in the English version) flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and full blessings are promised to Zion in the last days after judgment. All the nations shall be gathered against her (as Zechariah prophesies also, and Isaiah 17, and other passages), but she arises and threshes them as sheaves on the corn floor. In the midst of this it is announced (not as before, Micah 3) that wickedness led to desolation (as Isaiah had in Isaiah 42 and Isaiah 48), but that there was another great event in the interim — the Judge of Israel should be insulted and rejected, and that therefore God would give them up. This Judge of Israel was to be born in Bethlehem; but His goings forth have been from the days of eternity. Therefore will He give them up until she which hath travailed hath brought forth; then the remnant of his brethren will return to the children of Israel. Israel will be taken up again, and this man, this Judge of Israel, will be the peace, when the Assyrian comes.

Now the Assyrian is, numberless times, designated as the great enemy — I do not say oppressor of the Jews — in the latter day; and the prophecy speaks explicitly of the latter day after Israel had been given up, because they had smitten the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek. Now "contemporary" here is a dishonest word born of neology.

The prophecy I leave to any one to read through, and I would press the necessity of taking the context of passages as well as a single verse. I do not fear the result of reading the prophecy of Micah by any unprejudiced person; and the more he knows the scheme of prophecy in all the prophets, the clearer he will be, and the more he will be convinced that one Spirit wrote them. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. If the Jews of whom the prophets speak are excluded from the interpretation by Christians to apply it to themselves, they must distort them. If Jeremiah says, God had plucked them down, and He would build them up; and the plucking down is applied to Jews, and the building up to Christians, nonsense is made of it at once, because passages are found immediately which it is impossible so to accommodate. But if we take them as they are delivered, they are comparatively speaking perfectly simple. Yet it is into this very error this new school falls. "The typical ideas (of patience or of glory) find their culminating fulfilment in the new," says Dr. Williams

184 W. But let me interrupt you with a question here. This ideal element recalls it to me. You quoted the Baron on resurrection does he not believe in one?

H. No; as far as I can find out. "He shares," Dr. Williams tells us, "in the aspiration of the noblest philosophers elsewhere and of the firmer believers among ourselves, to (sic) a revival of conscious and individual life, in such a form of immortality as may consist with union with the Spirit of our eternal Life-giver." It is Buddhism, and that pretty much avowedly, for he defends Buddhism from the charge of seeking annihilation. It is Philo who taught that the soul was in dualism in the body, came down from God, was a portion of Himself, and returned to be rejoined to Him. Save in Philo's respect for the scriptures, which is only in vague language held by Bunsen, and denied in fact, all the main points of his view are, as I said, Philo's. With all its pretensions to philosophy and science, it is only a return to the doctrine of that vain but active-minded Platonic Jew. Only that Bunsen necessarily brings in Christ, but reduces Him to be a mere completing the ideal system of which He is a more perfect expression. It is remarkable that Philo speaks little of Messiah, and only as an earthly king — does not connect with Him the λόγος, of whom he speaks largely philosophically. I apprehend myself the whole ideal system came, as to parentage, from the Feroohers of Zoroaster, from whom Plato borrowed them, and Philo from Plato. You may find the account of Zoroaster's system in Heeren

W. But it is the utter subversion of Christianity in all its truths.

H. What do you think Bunsen makes of the fall?

W. I know not; though I think you referred to it. All their system denies it altogether.

H. It is "ideally the circumscription of our spirits in limits of flesh and time — then practically the selfish nature with which we fall from the likeness of God."

185 W. But then the fall and creation are the same thing; for, surely, our spirits were then circumscribed in flesh and time; and the selfish nature is only viewed as a practical state into which we may now come when free.

H. What you say is perfectly just — the fall is simply creation; but this is again Philo. The spirits were pure spirits, part of God, and were lowered and brought into an inferior state by coming into the body. So, indeed, Origen; only, inconsistently, he made it partly the effect of previous conduct. This is the secret of the teaching of Origen, and Clemens of Alexandria, and of Bunsen's liking them, as having the spirit of freedom in the church, which was lost afterwards. But I will take up some more of the cavils against scripture, because that is important. Forgive me if I am tedious.

W. Continue. All this examination of scripture is full of interest.

H. Dr. Williams says he "cannot quote Nahum, denouncing ruin against Nineveh, or Jeremiah against Tyre, without remembering that already the Babylonish power threw its shadow across Asia, and Nebuchadnezzar was mustering his armies." Now, all this vague language is very convenient to make mere human foresight out of divine prophecy. But there is no manly grappling with the subject. According to the best research, theological and other, Nahum lived in Hezekiah's reign. This is drawn from reference to historical facts alluded to in the prophecy in connection with Assyria, Egypt, and Philistia, and Isaiah 20. Now, Jeremiah was more than a hundred years afterwards. In Nahum's time Babylon did not cast its shadow over the East, and Nebuchadnezzar was not born. Merodach-Baladan reigned in Babylon, and cherished, probably, ambitious views against Assyria, Babylon having been long a capital before Nineveh. But, though he revolted, in the confusion of Sargon's usurpation, as it appears, he was attacked and driven from Babylon into the marshes; and, though a party of his own race held to him and his family, so far was Babylon from rising then, that Esarhaddon ruled without any subject king at all in Babylon; and Assyria under Sennacherib and Esarhaddon was at a pitch of splendour it had never reached before. After that it began to decline; but it was not Nebuchadnezzar who attacked it. The last king — as to whose name there is some difficulty — sent Nabopolassar against Cyaxares, king of Media; but he joined him, married his daughter, and they attacked Nineveh together. Then, a hundred years after the prophecy, as Nahum had said, the gates of the rivers were opened, the Tigris washed away the brick defences, and the king burnt the palace over his head. Modern research has proved in detail that the fire devoured her palaces. The statement, therefore, as regards Nahum, is entirely groundless.

186 As to Nebuchadnezzar mustering his armies, and Jeremiah knowing it, the great body of his prophecies refer, not to mustering armies, but to the war being carried on before his eyes. What was important was not that, it required no prophet, but one to put a distinct limit to the captivity of seventy years, and predict the final glory of Israel, as the prophets universally announce it, but with even more precision. That prophecy of the seventy years was distinctly fulfilled; and if Jeremiah prophesied at the mustering of the armies, and saw Jerusalem taken and burnt, his prophecy of her restoration is fulfilled prophecy.

But, as to dates, Dr. Williams is wrong. Jeremiah prophesies in the 14th year of Josiah; that was the first year of Nabopolassar. It was not till after this that Nebuchadnezzar comes upon the scene. Marcus Niebuhr makes the 14th year of Josiah some twenty years before Nebuchadnezzar's Syrian campaigns.

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