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KIGHT EEV. THE BISHOP OF DOWN, D.D., ON 



Down's paper will hurt many whom it is intended to help. Ma}^ I 

 venture to suggest a revision of one of his lordship's statements. 

 I would read it thus : "It was inevitable that when the public were 

 duped into supposing that scholarship was testing Holy Scripture in 

 the same way in which it tests all other documents, that fact had an 

 extraordinary influence" (p. 170, line 19). For the sham Higher 

 Criticism has tested " scripture in a way that would not be tolerated 

 in the case of other documents." The movement originated, as we all 

 know, with German Rationalists, who with the skill and subtlety for 

 which the German mind is famous, produced a " clear and complete " 

 case against certain of the sacred books. And English scholars 

 who have traded on their labours are the dupes of the egregious 

 fallacy that "a clear and complete case makes an end of controversy." 

 But no accused person is ever committed for trial in our Courts 

 unless a clear and complete case is made out in proof of his guilt. 

 The object of a trial is to sift that case, and to hear what is 

 to be said on the other side. If the critics could be brought 

 before a competent tribunal, their case would be " laughed out of 

 Court." For it is exploded not only by facts which they ignore, 

 but by a fuller knowledge of the Bible than any one of them has 

 given proof of possessing. For no one with an adequate acquaint- 

 ance with the typology of scripture, or with the scriptural scheme 

 of Divine prophecy would accept their " assured results." Therefore 

 it is that no archaeologist of note is on their side. And though many 

 book scholars and popular preachers help to distribute their German 

 wares, not a single front rank theologian of our time in Britain has 

 been with them. 



P. 171. Then again, the passage discriminating between " the mere 

 book " and the revelation which the book contains, will, I fear, be 

 generally misunderstood. I am not sure, indeed, that I understand it 

 myself. Renan would have accepted that entire paragraph, and in his 

 Vie de Jesus he has expressed similar thoughts in glowing words. But 

 while there is in such thoughts and words a basis for " the religion 

 of Christendom," this is not Christianity. For Christianity is a 

 revelation and a faith. A revelation of, and from, the Lord Jesus 

 Christ as risen and ascended, and a faith based upon that revelation as 

 contained in the God-breathed scriptures of the New Testament. 

 The blind and bitter infidelity that refused belief in " Jesus Christ " 

 as " the most vivid personality in history or literature," belonged to a 



