The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1897-03-09

] - 0 0AUAG eAAA0 AS OG4tACHa
The Baptist Church was crowded o.
Sunday evening by congregation attract
ed by the announcement that Rev. G. H
Pendleton would preach on the recen
criticisms upon the infallibIlity of tn,
Bible
Mr.. Pendleton took for his text thu
passage: Search the scriptures, for il
them we think ye have eternal life" He
began with reference to the time wheI
Sir Walter Scott, on his deathbed, re
quested his attendant to read to him
what book shall read ~ asked the at
tendant. 'Need you ask ?" replied Sin
Walter; "there is but one book-the
Bible" When the high place Sir Walter
Scott held is remembered there is some
unit with which to measure the Bible.
Towering SO transcendantly above all
books in the mind of Sir Walter Scott il
stood alone, unique, unapproaehed.
1t is the book of Gods articulate speech
to man. But like all Gods greatest gifts
to man, the Bible from time to time has
been abused, assaled, misread and mis-
understood. Mr.. Pendleton said he was
not present to defend the Bible, it needs
no defenders, it is its own defence. Nor
was he present to lash with vituperatiye
language those who, in his opinion, 90 too
far in their criticisms. There is a gener-
orally prevailing opinion that the books
authority has been assaIled and perhaps
lowered. An effort would be made to
show that this feeling has no foundation
in fact.
Mr.. Pendleton said l am not unmind-
full that there are people so conscious OF
the nervous system of their faith that
they dread any agitation lest their faith
may be disturbed-they get a kind OF
spiritual hysteria and piteously plead.
why take our faith away?" l have very
little admiration for that feeble faith that
goes about pleading to be permitted to
exist, just as some poor victim pleads to
be permitted his opium. You hear them
in the most apologize way saying, ''for-
give me, l am not so strong as you are.
but let me keep my faith it's all the
comfort have" The sooner that kind
of faith goes the better. Let faith stand
firm upon both feet, vigorous and manly.
strong in the glory and dignity of that
which is the highest reach-asking truce
and quarter nowhere.
Truth cannot be hushed, and he is a
moral coward who wants it hushed. /
am what l am from firm and fearless con.
victions of truth. l have no fear that any
man or set of men can shake its founda-
tions. Show me a new truth, that nv
faith is falsely grounded and will strike
my tent tonight. No man wants to serve
pious fiction, but before any one is
asked to surrender his faith, he has the
right to ask quo a0arronto. Men are ask
ing us to accept their dIctum with refer
ence to the Bible. By what right do thew
do so?
Let me invite your attention to some
aspects of Biblical criticism. All the
noise has come from this. There are two
wranglers who are the cause of most of
the hubbub. One makes very extreme
claims that the Bible is not what it has
been generally believed to be-the other
throws up his arms in panic and yocif-
crates that the foundations of the faith
are gone. Real danger seldom lies in the
direction of the biggest noise. There are
two kinds of criticism recognized-one.
textual criticism, deals with the texts and
versions and seeks by comparison to come
as near to the original autographs as DOS
sible. Splendid and praiseWorthy work
has been accom- plished 1t can be said
without fear of contradiction that to-day
we have the purest text since the time of
the apostles.
So ample and overwhelming is the evil
dence to the authenticity of the New Tes-
lament scriptures that they are no longer
seriously questioned. The question now
is in regard to the Old Testament. The
second kind of criticism, popularity called
niger criticism deals with the authentic
ity and integrity of the books and endeav-
ors to determine when and by whom thew
were written and whether they are indie
pendent treatises, or drawn from older
sources traditional or documentary
These are very difficult questions and il
does not take much learning to assert a
negative-the burden of proof appears to
be on the affirmative.
For instance, man may deny that
Moses is the author of the Pentateucb.
The conclusions of destructive criticism
are very delusive. they look to be more
than they are. Let me state briefly the
claims for which radical criticism is con-
tending. Moses, we are told, did not
write the Pentateuch; the whole story
about the giving of the law from Sinai is a
poetical invention of later date to give
impressiveness to the Decalogue; the
historical materials are treated as worth
less, and so on. How do these critics
know so much more than Christ and His
apostles? The answer is, on the principle
of evolution. They claim that the theory
of evolution has been scientifically estab-
lished and should be accepted as a canon
of criticism. If there is any theory on the
lift to-day for lack of facts to stand upon
it is evolution; it is Tefuted by the exca.
vations at Babylon which carry docu-
mentary and authentic history of the race
back almost nine thousand years, and
back there man appears to have been
about the same as to-day-certainly not
within hailing distance of the ape. II
evolution is defective then the critics
conclusions are hardly to be trusted.
But the critics have another argument
the literary one. That is, you can tell
by the diction, the dialect, the language.
Genesis is supposed to be the production
of not less than seven men reduced to its
present form by Redactor or Redactors.
OF course these authors are not known,
they are designated by P, j., j., E., JE.,
R. and an uncertain one we may call X.
A running look at Genesis shows that the
Redactor is supposed to have taken IS
paragraphs from p, 1877 from j., 80 from
E., 5 from j., 6 from JE., an entire chap
ter from x, and los paragraphs have
been written IN by the Redactor himself,
to say nothing of 20 CLOSES by Y.,-4O9
pieces in book of SO pages in an Oxford
Bible, and these pieces vary all the way
from single word, half line to a para
graph and entire chapters.
My hearers, what do you think of II 7
At the risk of wearying you, l have given
you this sample of higher criticism. 1t is
fair, | assure you. Does it not seem that
such amazing learning is too much fol
the finite mind If you ask how they
found out so much they will tell you that
it is by literary criticism. The magic
wand they WELD is more wonderful than
the rod with which Moses is said to have
smitten the rock IN the wilderness. l dc
not see why these critics should have
stopped when they have such an instru
ment as literary analysis. What they
have done for the Pentateuch they have
done for the other books of the Old Tes
lament. Job is pulled forward to com
paratively late date. Instead of being the
most ancient of books as its contents
would seem to show, it is one of thu
latest. Why? because it could not hav,
been evolved 30 early. The book of Ruth
some critics locate at the period of thu
exile, but Weilhausen places it consider
ably later; Davidson credits Ruth to th,
age of Hezekiah Robertson Smith say
the language is post classical Canon
Driver says it is classical When doctor
disagree who is to decide? So they dea
with Ecclesiastes. But the book of DAME
they are most certain about. 1t is
prophecy Of events long after they &C
Cured, because there are certain Greel
traces in the book, hence it could no
have been written until after the Macedo
main conquest of Alexander the Great, TO
in order to get two Greek words over Their
in Babylon it required Alexander and hi
steel-clad all-conquerng phalanxes t.
carry them there. Frankly l do not be
lieve word of it. Either they know to-