115
The History of the Higher Criticism.
NOT OBSCURANTISTS. I t is very necessary to have our minds made perfectly clear on this point, and to remove not a little dust of misunder standing. The desire to receive all the light that the most fearless search,for truth by the highest scholarship can yield is the desire of every true believer in the Bible. No really healthy Christian mind can advocate obscurantism. The obscurant who opposes the investigation of scholarship, and would throt tle the investigators, has not the spirit of Christ. In heart and attitude he is a Mediaevalist. To use Bushnell’s famous apologue, he would try to stop the dawning of the day by wringing the neck of the crowing cock. No one wants to put the Bible in a glass case: But it is the duty of every Christian who belongs to the noble army of truth-lovers to test all things and to hold fast that which is good. He also has rights even though he is, technically speaking, unlearned, and to accept any view that contradicts his spiritual judgment simply because it is that of a so-called scholar, is to abdicate his franchise as a Christian and his birthright as a man. (See that excellent little work by Professor Kennedy, “Old Testament Criticism and the Rights of the Unlearned,” F. H. Revell.) And in his right of private judgment he is aware that while the privilege of investigation is conceded to all, the conclu sions of an avowedly prejudiced scholarship must be subjected to a peculiarly searching analysis. The most ordinary Bible reader is learned enough to know that the investigation of the Book that claims to be supernatural by those who are avowed enemies of all that is supernatural, and the study of subjects that can be understood only by men of humble and contrite heart by men who are admittedly irreverent in spirit, must certainly be received with caution. (See Parker’.s striking work, “None Like It,” F. H. Revell, and his last address.)
Made with FlippingBook Learn more on our blog