1782 as

1

'the historical method,' or what the German theologian Eichhorn described as early as 1787 as the higher criticism.' 2

non

It is the object of the present course of lectures to sketch the conditions under which this has been effected, and exhibit some of its results. These have not been attained without difficulty. Powerful forces of tradition were arrayed against too bold enquirers. The influence of ecclesiastical corporations, large and and small, established and established, was invoked to suppress undue liberty and avert danger to the faith. It seems fitting, therefore, to recite very briefly at the outset the history of what may be called the struggle for freedom of Biblical research. The chief arena of this contest was the Church of England, though the same controversy arose outside as well as within its fold and the decisions of the Anglican tribunals, together with the general progress of thought, have been the main instruments in securing for Biblical study in this country its legitimate place. In this respect, the contrast between the laxity of the eighteenth century and the stringency of the first half of the nineteenth is not without instruction.

1 Preface to the History of the Corruptions of Christianity. He thus states his purpose, 'to shew what circumstances in the state of things, and especially of other prevailing opinions and prejudices, made the alteration, in doctrine or practice, sufficiently natural, and the introduction and establishment of it easy. And if I have succeeded in this investigation, this historical method will be found to be one of the most satisfactory modes of argumentation,' etc. * Einleitung in das Alte Testament, preface.

I.

2

The eighteenth century has been described as 'an age whose poetry was without romance, whose philosophy was without insight, and whose public men were without character.'1 It is not surprising, then, that its theology should appear sterile. Yet it began with Locke's endeavour to prove Christianity reasonable and to make St. Paul intelligible; it produced the Evangelical revival with its impassioned faith and its eager philanthropies; and, as it ran out, a new note of religion was sounded in Wordsworth's 'Lines on Tintern Abbey.' In the first half, however, the great Deistical controversy practically absorbed all thought. The chief problem was the relation of what was known as 'Revelation' to reason; and discussion raged round difficulties arising from discrepancies in the Biblical records, the character of the early narratives in Genesis, the morality of the injunctions for the massacre of the Canaanites, or the claims of prophecy and miracle. 'Christianity,' in the pungent words of Mr. Pattison, appeared made for nothing else but to be "proved"; what use to make of it when it was proved was not much thought about.'

3

1 Mark Pattison, in Essays and Reviews, 3rd ed. 1860, p. 254.

In the Lyrical Ballads, 1798.

3 A brief but admirable account of its significance will be found in the Retrospect of the Religious Life of England, by the Rev. J. J. Tayler, chap. v. section ix. On its import for philosophy the student will of course consult the History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century by Sir Leslie Stephen

The apologists, however, took up very different positions with respect to the Scriptures. Sometimes, as in Butler's famous Analogy (1736), the questions of inspiration and authority were thrown into the background; the gospels, for example, were cepted as adequate statements of historic fact, supported by the testimony of St. Paul, and by the belief of the first converts who had ample opportunity of informing themselves of the truth. Warburton lavished prodigious learning on his demonstration of the Divine Legation of Moses on the Principles of a Religious Deist from the Omission of the Doctrine of a Future State of Rewards and Punishments in the Jewish Dispensation' (1737-41). But he found it sufficient to assume the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch in a single sentence without proof.' Sherlock, who in 1728 was consecrated Bishop of Bangor, thought it not undignified to argue the case for the resurrection of Jesus in the form of a mock trial. The alternative to the literal reality of the Gospel narratives is a fraudulent plot; and the evidence of the apostles is guaranteed both by their own miraculous powers and their readiness to die on behalf of the truth. Addison's Essay on the Evidences of Christianity only proved how imperfect

'The history of Moses may be divided into two periods; from the creation to his mission, and from his mission to his delivering up his command to Joshua; the first written by him in quality of historian, the second of legislator.' Book V, § 5, II. i.

The Tryal of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus, published anonymously in 1729.

'Published in 1721; he had died in 1719.

was the equipment of an accomplished Oxford scholar for dealing with a complicated historical problem.1 Very different was the method of the learned Nonconformist, Nathaniel Lardner (1684X 1768). Educated among the Independents and Presbyterians, he had studied also at Utrecht and Leyden.

He spent thirty years over his great work on the Credibility of the Gospel History (1727-57), in which his effort to prove that the facts of the New Testament are narrated without real discrepancies was supplemented by his immense collection of testimonies to the date and authorship of the several books. Here, as in the Analogy, no theory of inspiration is formulated. Lardner's aim is to vindicate the Evangelists and sustain the miracles; but he does so without making embarrassing claims. The mass of his learning has secured him a firm place in the ranks of conservative theologians; it is all the more remarkable that in his treatment of demoniacal possession he should have inclined to rationalism.3

'He

1 Macaulay's description is well known (Essays, vol. iii. p. 434). assigns as grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as that of the Cocklane ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's Vortigern, puts faith in the lie about the Thundering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved the senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letter of Abgarus king of Edessa to be a record of great authority.'

2 He may justly be regarded as the founder of the modern school of critical research in the field of early Christian Literature' (Rev. Alex. Gordon in Dict. of Nat. Biog.)

3 See four discourses on the Gadarene Demoniac, Works (ed. 1788) vol. i. His answer to the objection that 'our blessed Lord, if he did not countenance the common and prevailing opinion upon this head, does not appear to have opposed or discouraged it,' will be found at p. 483.

The popular view of the divine authority of the Scriptures rested on the common term Word of God' as applied to the Bible. In the eighteenth century under the commanding voice of Locke-' It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its matter'— the infallibility of the Bible was generally received;1 though it was reserved for an Oxford theologian in the nineteenth century to give to that doctrine its most explicit statement in the university pulpit in the controversy which followed the publication of Essays and Reviews.

'The Bible is none other than the voice of Him that sitteth upon the throne. Every book of it, every chapter of it, every verse of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, (where are we to stop?) every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High. The Bible is none other than the Word of God, not some part of it more, some part of it less, but all alike the utterance of Him who sitteth upon the throne, faultless, unerring, supreme.'"

There were not wanting, however, protests against the view implied in Locke's language about ' dictation' by the Holy Spirit; and a series of distinguished divines at Cambridge did much to prepare the way for the theological movement of a later day. They were nurtured on Locke's Reasonableness of Christianity and the Paraphrase of the Epistles, which

''The doctrine of unerring literal inspiration was almost everywhere held in its strictest form' (Abbey & Overton, The English Church in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i., p. 560). Locke, letter to Rev. R. King, Aug. 25th, 1703, Works (ed. 1801), vol. x., p. 304.

2

Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, 1861, p. 89.

3 'The spirit of God that dictated these sacred writings' (preface to the Paraphrase of the Epistles of St. Paul, etc.)