78 THE REV. J. J. LIAS, M.A., ON THE UNITY OF ISAIAH. 



for all the peoples of the world would have repelled them, and 

 have found no acceptance. As for such condemnations of the 

 worship of idols as we find in many passages of " second " Isaiah, 

 they could not have been written in post-exilic times. They 

 would have been regarded as unfounded and unjust attacks 

 upon a blameless and suffering people. For the outward 

 observances of idolatry had become utterly abhorrent to the 

 Jews of the Keturn. 



It is but fair to add that some of the characteristics ascribed 

 to the book of Isaiah are to be found — though not to the same 

 extent — in other prophetic writings. It was inevitable that 

 Isaiah, who was not only the greatest of the prophets, but 

 one of the earliest, should influence those who came after him. 

 The most striking example of this is found in the forty-eighth 

 chapter of the prophecy of Jeremiah, the denunciation of Moab, 

 in which he largely quotes the Burden of Moab recorded in 

 Isaiah xv and xvi. Much of it is verbal quotation, some of it 

 an amplification of Isaiah's words. 



Conclusion. 



The effect of German destructive criticism is to lower the 

 general credit of the Scriptures. The critics divide by centuries 

 the various authors from the events they profess to describe ; 

 the authors, according to them, are not men intimately 

 acquainted with the events they record, and their sources of 

 information are vague traditions, true or false — probably false, 

 except when they are assertions having no particular religious 

 value. Historical statements are supposed to have been 

 " worked over " by men of later date ; prophecies must have 

 been written after the event. 



But the Bible, throughout all its books, professes to be the 

 communication by God to man of His Divine Will. The 

 Pentateuch may not be all the work of Moses, but it must 

 either have been written under his direction, or be a deliberate 

 and indefensible forgery. The historical books were clearly the 

 work of members of the schools of the prophets, who became 

 the government scribes ; the books of Chronicles speak of the 

 works of Nathan and Gad, of Jehu the son of Hanani, and 

 other persons well known in Jewish history. I cannot stop to 

 quote any of the prophecies contained in Holy Writ, not con- 

 nected directly with revelation, which could not have been 

 written after the event. I can only refer to the one great 

 fact that the prophecies of the setting aside of the Mosaic 



