GERMANISM.'^ 



153 



stand by virtue of the calling which God and Christ have been 

 pleased to give them), encourage your hearts and establish you 

 in every good work and word/'* 



This passage was written to a body of persons with whom 

 the Apostle St. Paul had been staying for about three weeks. 

 It can hardly be denied that the words are quite astonishing, 

 and that they could hardly have been written unless under the 

 conviction that some very great and mysterious power lay behind 

 them. This conviction has proved to be well founded. When 

 we add that some 1850 years have taken place since these words 

 were written, and that a congregation of persons still exists at 

 the place who claim that the passage refers as completely to them 

 as to those to whom they were originally addressed, the fact 

 seems still more significant. If we add the further fact that for 

 some four or five centuries Thessalonica, or as we now call it, 

 Salonica, was conquered and held by a heathen nation, and that 

 it only returned to a Christian ruler about four years ago, the 

 tone of confidence displayed by the author of the Epistle in his 

 extraordinary statement seems more significant still. 



The chief point in each of these lines of argument is this. 

 The proofs are scientific ; and in spite of many — too many by a 

 great deal — asseverations to the contrary, by the German School, 

 the German methods are not scientific. As we have seen, the 

 three requisites of scientific discovery are (1) that the hypotheses 

 used to discover a law should be suggested by observation ; 

 (2) that the results of the hypotheses should be compared with 

 observed facts ; and (3) that if, and only if, they 

 agree with the observed facts they may be regarded as 

 truths. 



The first case involves a psychological problem. Can the 

 German School present us with a single instance of a deliberate 

 forgery Avhich is so glowing with moral energy, so full of the 

 deepest conviction, so replete with moral excellence, and so 

 thoroughly permeated by holy desires and purposes, as is the 

 book of Deuteronomy throughout ? If there is little direct 

 evidence that Deuteronomy was written by Moses, there is none 

 whatever against it. But we have also the direct evidence that 

 the book of Deuteronomy has been regarded as the work of Moses 

 for at least 2500 years, and possibly for nearly a thousand years 

 more. There is also another difficulty to be overcome, the 



* 2 Thess. ii, 13-15. Many copies have "word and work." 



