120 The Fundamentals. look forward to a great blood shedding that would bring life and blessing to mankind. But Babylon was to the ancient world what Rome has been to Christendom. It corrupted every divine ordinance and truth, and perpetuated them as thus corrupted. And in the Pentateuch we have the divine re-issue of the true cult. The figment that the debased and corrupt b v r e e r w sio , n bu w t a n s o th o e ne or w ig h i o na h l a m s a a y ny sa p t r i a s c f t y ic s a o l m k e no p w ro le fe d s g s e or o s f o h f umH a e n nature would entertain it. INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE. At this stage, however, what concerns us is not. the divine authority of the books, but the human error and folly of the t c a r c it k ica is l a th tt e ac f k ac u t p t o h n at th in em t . he T re h v e iv o a n l ly un h d is e t r or J i o ca si l a b h a , s " is th o e f b t o h o a k t a o t f the law" was found in the temple by Hilkiah, the high priest, to whom the young king entrusted the duty of cleansing and e re ry no i v t a w ti a n s g , s t e h e e in lo g n t g ha n t e M gle o c s t e e s d h s a h d ri i n n e e . xp A res m s o t s e t rm na s tu co ra m l m d a is n c d o e v d that it should be kept there (2 Kings 22 :8; Deut. 31 :26). But according to the critics, the whole business was a detestable trick of the priests. For they it was who forged the books and invented the command, and then hid the product of their infamous work where they knew it would be found. And apart from this, the only foundation for "the assured results of modern criticism," as they themselves acknowledge, consists of "grounds of probability" and "plausible arguments"! In no civilized country would an habitual criminal be convicted of petty larceny on such evidence as this; and yet it is on these grounds that we are called upon to give up the sacred books which our Divine Lord accredited as "the Word of God" and made the basis of His doctrinal teaching. CHRIST OR CRITICISM ? And this brings tts to the second, and incomparably the
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