Old Testament Criticism and New Ttstanient Christianity 129
were they wholly void of critical acumen with refercnce to Holy Scripture. Yet they, and the whole Church with them, never hesitated to accept the view of the Old Testament which had come down to them, not only as a heritage from Judaism, but as endorsed by the apostles. Omitting ·all reference to our Lord, it is not open to question that the views of St. Paul and St. Peter and St. John about the Old Testament were the views of the whole Christian Church until the end of the eighteenth century. And, making every possible allowance for the lack of historical spirit and of modern critical methods, are we to suppose that the whole Church for centuries never exercised its mind on such subjects as the contents, history, and authority of the Old Testament? Besides, this is a matter which cannot be decided by intel- lectual criticism alone. Scripture appeals to conscience, heart and will, as well as to mind ; and the Christian consciousness, the accumulated spiritual experience of the body of Christ, is not to be lightly regarded, much less set aside, unless it is proved to be unwarranted by fact. \iVhile we do not say that "what is new is not true," the novelty of these modern critical views should give us pause before we virtually set aside the spiritual instinct of centuries of Christian experience. 2. DOES THE NEW CRITICISM READILY AGREE WITH THE HIS- TORICAL POSITION OF THE JEWISH NATION? - The Jewish nation is a fact in history, and its record is given to us in the Old Testament. There is no contemporary literature to check the account there given, and archaeology affords us assistance on points of detail only, not for any long or continuous period. This record of Jewish history can be proved to have remained the same for many centuries. Yet much of modern criticism is compelled to reconstruct the history of the Jews on several important points. It involves, for instance, a very different idea of the character of the earliest form of Jewish religion from that seen in the Old Testament as it now
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