230 THE RT. REV. BISHOP J. E. C. WELLDON, D.D., OX 



alike by Jews, by Christians and by Mohammedans; no cap- 

 tivity in Babylon, no age-long anticipation of the Messiah, then 

 who are the Jews? Whence came they? What is the truth 

 of their history? I venture to assert that, if the stories of the 

 Patriarchs in the Book of Genesis are not extremely ancient 

 stories, however the Book of Genesis may have assumed its. 

 present form, they defy every test of literary criticism. Bur 

 it is not credible that the Jews should be and should always 

 have been mistaken as to the character or the origin of their own 

 sacred books. Does anybody tell me that the Jews misconceived 

 the relative dates of the Pentateuch and the Prophecies? You 

 might as well tell me that an Englishman could suppose Tennyson 

 to be a poet of an earlier date than Spenser or Chaucer. The 

 Jews knew, and they must have known, better than any German 

 critic, which of their sacred books represented an earlier, and 

 which a later, stage of their national history. I do not insist, 

 upon the details of a literature so ancient as the Hebrew; but 

 to me it seems that the Jews are sufficient witnesses to their 

 own literature, as that literature is to the anticipation of the 

 Messiah and the advent of Jesus Christ is to the fulfilment of 

 that anticipation. 



The fact is that the existence of the Jewish people confirms 

 the Old Testament as the existence of the Christian Church 

 confirms the New Testament. It has been well said, and it 

 should always be borne in mind, that the Church preceded the 

 Gospels. If the Gospels and the Epistles and all the sacred 

 writings of the New Testament were blotted out, it would still 

 be necesary to account for the origin of the Christian Church. 

 There are people who talk as if no task on earth were easier 

 than the foundation of a Church. Why, there are only three 

 great progressive religions in the world; and they are all pro- 

 perly Oriental. The West, with all its pride of achievement, has 

 never been able to originate a religion. How, then, was the 

 Christian Church born? How did it lift its head among its 

 enemies? How did it conquer the civilised nations of Greek 

 and Eome? Everybody who knows Gibbon's famous five ex- 

 planatory causes of Christianity knows that the judgment of a 

 great historian may be warped by an unhappy prejudice. The 

 Church of Christ dates back to Christ Himself. If He was 

 human, it may fail; if He is Divine, it cannot fail. He has not 

 promised that it shall not be wounded, stricken almost to death;, 

 but He has promisel that it shall not die. 



Jesus Christ Himself is a unique figure in the history of 

 mankind. There is none like Him ; there is no second to Him 

 He is the undisputed head of the whole human family. His 

 whole life, as the Gospels record it, passes on a superhuman 



