102 VEN. ARCHDEACON WILLIAM SINCLAIR, D.D._, ON 



of Dean Alford, written many years ago, are just as true now 

 as when they first appeared. When the advanced critics say 

 that they have made great progress since such a date, and that 

 circumstances are entirely altered, they mean that somebody 

 has made a hypothesis, which has been adopted by others ; 

 that these others have gone one better, and that in the end an 

 imposing structure has arisen without any foundation at all. 



" It is important to observe in these days," says Dean Alford, 

 "how the Lord (in the Sermon on the Mount) includes the Old 

 Testament and all its unfolding of the Divine purposes regarding 

 Himself in His teaching of the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. 

 I say this, because it is always in contempt and setting aside of the 

 Old Testament that rationalism has begun. First, its historical 

 truth — then its theocratic dispensation, and the types and prophecies 

 connected with it, are swept away; so that Christ came to fulfil 

 nothing, and becomes only a teacher or a martyr ; and thus the way 

 is paved for a similar reflection of the New Testament — beginning 

 with the narratives of the Birth and Infancy as theocratic myths — 

 advancing to the denial of His miracles — then attacking the truth- 

 fulness of His own sayings, which are grounded on the Old Testament 

 as a revelation from God — and so finally leaving us nothing in the 

 Scriptures, but, as a German writer of this school has expressed it, 

 ' a mythology not so attractive as that of Greece.' That this is the 

 course which unbelief has run in Germany should be a pregnant 

 warning to the decriers of the Old Testament among ourselves." 



Dean Alford could hardly have foreseen what mischief this 

 German craze for the building of critical castles in the air 

 would achieve. 



Professor Peakes tribute to Professor Orr. 



Professor Peake (Professor of Biblical Exegesis in the 

 University of Manchester) states that the most important 

 attack on the advanced school is Professor Orr's (Professor of 

 Apologetics and Systematic Theology, United Pree Church 

 College, Glasgow) Problems of the Old Testamsnt. It may be 

 useful to give an outline of his argument. He says that the 

 problem is twofold ; religious and literary. To eliminate the 

 religious element is uncritical. We have to make up our 

 mind, how are we to conceive of the religion, whether it is 

 natural or supernatural ? Then comes the second question, 

 how are we to conceive of the literature, as to its age, author- 

 ship and trustworthiness ? The second question depends in 

 part on the first, In many cases the decisions arrived at on 



