Holy Scripture and Modern Negations 97 On the other hand, we are not bound to accept every wild critical theory that any critic may choose to put forward and assert, as the final word on this matter. We are entitled, nay, we are bound, to look at the presuppositions on which each criticism proceeds, and to ask, How far is the criticism con• trolled by those presuppositions? We are bound to look at the evidence by which the theory is supported, and to ask, Is i t really borne out by that evidence? And when theories are put forward with every confidence as fixed results, and we find them, as we observe them, still in constant process of evolution and change, constantly becoming more complicated, more extreme, more fanciful, we are entitled to inquire, Is this the certainty that it was alleged to be? Now that is my complaint against much of the current criticism of the Bible -not that it is criticism, but that it starts from the wrong basis, that it proceeds by arbitrary methods, and that it ar• rives at results which I think are demonstrably false results. That is a great deal to say, no doubt, but perhaps I shall have some justification to offer for it before I am done. I am not going to enter into any general tirade against criti• cism; but it is useless to deny that a great deal of what is called criticism is responsible for the uncertainty and unset• tlement of feeling existing at the present time about the Holy Scriptures. I do not speak especially of those whose philos� phical standpoint compels them to take up an attitude of negation t o supernatural revelation, or to books which pr� fess to convey such a revelation. Criticism of this kind, criticism that starts from the basis of the denial of the super natural , has of course, to be reckoned with. In its hands everything is engineered from that basis. There is the denial to begin with, that God ever has entered into human history, in word and deed, in any supernatural way. The necessary result is that whatever in the Bible affirms or flows from such interposition of God is expounded or explained away. The Scriptu,-es on this showing, instead of bei,ng the living ora-
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