The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined

of our own generation - amid their thoughts, bad as well as good, their questionings and doubtings and shallow disputations, as well as their energetic impatience of concealment and hatred of all formalism, that God has placed the scene of our responsibilities; and it is vain to think that we can do any good amongst them by attempting to teach them on the principles of a departed state of society, and not as their own characters and circumstances require.

Its

It is certain that every man in this country, who can read, either knows already, or may learn every day as he reads, what those difficulties with respect to the Bible are on which infidels insist; and it must be well also that he should know their refutation; or, better still, that he should feel that confidence which is inspired by a persuasion that good and learned men have candidly met these difficulties, grappled with them fairly, and vindicated the truth. Nor can this service be said to have been performed for us by the able writers on Evidences of the last age; for, since their time, infidelity has much changed the ground of its attack. objections are much more connected now than in former times with a minute critical examination of the sacred books; and therefore it is in the field of criticism that it must be met and overthrown. And is it not certain that there are many questions connected with the authenticity and authority of these books, on which we, in this country, with all our vaunted learning, are not as yet prepared with the requisite information and thought to enable us to vindicate the truth? Is it not too true that the great majority of serious men feel themselves quite taken, as it were, by surprise, when such difficulties are forced upon their notice? And, if the watchmen of Israel have not looked their danger steadily in the face, how can they be prepared to meet it?

Moreover, it is well to remark, in passing, that we are ourselves (in many respects very properly) encouraging studies in matters of secular literature, which are sure in time to suggest to all minds that the freedom of inquiry which they engender may sooner or later be applied also to the Sacred Books. Dangers and Safeguards, p.83-87.

I conclude with an extract from HENGSTENBERG'S Preface to his work on 'Daniel,' to the terms of which I heartily subscribe.

The author thinks he has a right to expect that, as he has employed arguments in this book, he will be answered with arguments. If this righteous demand should not be acceded to, the loss will not fall upon him, but on those who attempt to annihilate evidence with abuse.

Let, then, my Right Reverend Brother, who has judged and condemned me, answer my arguments by a book, or provide, to use the Bishop of LONDON's words, that good and learned men

shall candidly meet these difficulties, grapple with them fairly, and vindicate the truth'- and not seek to put them down by sneers, by mere declamation from the pulpit or the platform, or by sending a brief of excommunication to the 'Times.' If the arguments here stated can be fairly set aside, most gladly will I acknowledge my fault before the Church, and submit to the just consequences of my acts. But, if they shall appear to be well founded and true, I appeal once more to the English Laity to look to their own religious liberties, and the interests of the Truth, and to set on foot such measures, as may seem best, for obtaining through the action of Parliament, on whose decisions the system of our National Church depends, such relief for the consciences of the Clergy as shall give room for the free utterance of God's truth in the Congregation, instead of the worn-out formulæ of a bygone age. Can we not trust God's Truth to take care of itself in this world? Must we seek, in our ignorant feeble way, to prop it up by legal enactments, and fence it round by a system of fines and forfeitures and Church anathemas, lest the rude step of some 'free inquirer' should approach too near, and do some fatal injury to the Eternal Truth of God? Have we no faith in God, the Living God? And do we not believe that He himself is willing, and surely able as willing, to protect His own honour, and to keep in safety the souls of His children, and, amidst the conflict of opinion that will ever be waged in this world in the search after truth,-which may be vehement, but need not be uncharitable,- to maintain in each humble, prayerful, heart the essential substance of that Truth, which maketh wise unto salvation'? Surely, as a friend has written

To suppose that we can serve God's cause by shutting our eyes to the light, much more to suppose that we can serve it by asserting that we see what we do not see, because we wish to see it, is simply intellectual Atheism.

And when men declare, as some have done, that there can be no belief in God, no Religion, no laws binding on the conscience, no principles to purify the heart, no authoritative sanction for the most sacred duties of private, social, and public life, unless these old stories of the Pentateuch are received with implicit faith - at least, in their main features as literally and historically true, is not this really, in however disguised a form, the very depth of Infidelity?