My Experience with Higher Criticism 109 tables” to suit their theories and were doing so fast and loose. They could create nations and empires out of a desert, and like the alchemists of the Middle Ages with their magic wand, transform all things into their own special and favorite metal. To charge the Scripture writers with this invention and falsi fication is grossly to malign them and slander the God that wrought through them. The quality of their products does not lend countenance to such a view, and it is abhorrent to the Christian consciousness. Such a conception cannot be long held by any whose moral and religious natures have not been dulled by their philosophical presuppositions. The habit of discard ing the Books of Chronicles, because they give no history of Northern Israel, lay considerable emphasis upon the temple and priesthood, pass over the faults and sins of the kings, etc., and are therefore a biased and untrustworthy history, has appeared to me an aberration from common sense, and is scarcely credible among men of such intelligence. When the compiler of Chronicles covers the same history of Kings, he agrees with these histories substantially, though varying in some minor details. If he is reliable in this material, why not in the other material, not found in Kings ? Thé real reason is that he records many facts about the temple and its services which do not fit in with the critics’ hypothesis, and therefore something must be done to discredit the Chronicler and get rid of his testimony. But my third reason for rejecting the critical standpoint III. THE SPIRIT OF THE MOVEMENT Grant that there is a genuine scientific interest underlying it all, the real question is, what is the standpoint of the scien tific mind which investigates. What is authoritative with him ? His philosophical theory and working hypothesis, or his religious faith? In other words, does his religion or phi losophy control his thinking? Is it reason or faith that is supreme? Is his authority human or divine? There is no
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