Such are the varied classes which assail the Christian religion. Their methods of assault, though having much in common, are as varied as the kinds of unbelievers. The atheist mockingly asks if there be a God why he does not make himself manifest to all the world; why he keeps himself shrouded in mystery? Why not reveal himself to all as well as to a chosen few? Pushing aside the testimony of those who say they have stood in his presence, he boldly asserts there is no God, because no one has ever seen him; he has not made himself known to men, and in conclusion he points to the natural and uninterrupted order of things in the universe as proof that all things are governed by blind forces instead of intelligence, whether a personality or apart from personality.
The deists say nearly all that the atheists say; but admitting an intelligence back of all phenomena in the universe, they pretend to read his will in the book of nature,12 and contrast its perfections with the imperfections of all written books of revelation. To them the Bible—the Christian volume of revelation—is imperfect and contradictory; it teaches a morality and seems to tolerate practices unworthy of a Being of infinite goodness.
The agnostics join with the deists in their objections. They see all the contradictions, imperfections and alleged immorality that deists see in the Christian volume of revelation; and with them question the authenticity and credibility of the scriptures. If they differ from the deists in anything, it is simply in arriving at a less positive conclusion. But the worst is to come.
There has arisen within our century, mainly in Germany, a class of theological writers, who indeed profess a reverence both for the name and person of Jesus Christ, and a real regard, moreover, for the scriptures as "embodiments of what is purest and holiest in religious feeling;" and yet they degrade Christ to a mere name, and strip the scriptures of all their force as the word of God, by denying the historical character of the Biblical narrative. Starting with the postulate that the miraculous is impossible and never happens, or at least has never been proven,13 they relegate the scriptures—the New Testament as well as the Old—to the realms of poetry, legend or myth, because they are filled with accounts of the miraculous.14
This movement of theological thought had its origin in a new science, the science of historical criticism, which had its birth in our own nineteenth century. The new science consisted simply in applying to the mass of materials on which much of ancient history had been hitherto based—myths, legends and oral traditions—the rules15 embodying the judgment of sound discretion upon the value of different sorts of evidence. The effect of the application of this principle to the materials out of which our ancient histories were constructed, was to banish to the realms of pure myth or doubtful legend much which our fathers accepted as historical fact. The relations of ancient authors are no longer received with as ready a belief as formerly; nor are all ancient authors any longer put upon the same footing and regarded as equally credible, or all parts of their work supposed to rest upon the same basis.16 Many old, fond theories have been shattered; in some respects the whole face of antiquity has been changed,17 and instead of now looking upon the ancients as demi-gods, and the condition in which they lived as being something supernatural, we are made to feel that they were men of like passions with ourselves, possessed of the same weaknesses, actuated by the same motives of self interest, ambition, jealousy, love, hatred; and that the conditions surrounding them were no more supernatural than those which surround us. The science of historical criticism by the application of its main principle has stripped ancient times of their prodigies, and has either brought those demi-gods of legend to earth and made them appear very human, or has banished them entirely from real existence.
So long as the leading principle of this new science was applied to profane history alone; and the revolution it inaugurated confined to smashing the myths of ancient Greece, Rome, Babylon, Egypt and India, no complaints were heard. Indeed, the work was very generally applauded. But when the same principle began to be applied to what, by Christians at least, was considered sacred history, then an exception was pleaded.
This difficulty was met by orthodox believers much in the same way that an earlier question, one about miracles, was met by Conyers Middleton. It will be remembered that the Catholic Church has always claimed for herself the power of working miracles from the earliest days until the present; and cites, in confirmation of her claims, testimony that seems at once respectable and sufficient. The Protestants, with the Anglican Church at their head, in the discussions to which reference is here made, conceded that the possession of the gift of working miracles was prima facie evidence of divine authority and soundness of faith.18 So much being conceded, Protestants were puzzled when to fix the date that miracles ceased. They were certain that no miracles had happened in their times, but were equally positive that they had occurred in the early Christian centuries. But the recent testimony presented by their Catholic opponents was just as worthy of belief as the testimony of the early Christian Fathers; in some respects it was better, because it was within reach for examination. What was to be done? If this recent testimony of the Catholic Church concerning miracles was to be rejected, could the earlier testimony of the Christian Fathers stand? The discussion had reached this point when Middleton published his "Free Inquiry," in which he held that the miracles claimed by the Catholic Church, both in former and recent times must stand or fall together. For if the testimony of the early Christian Fathers and contemporary witnesses could confirm the former, the testimony of the recent witnesses, being just as respectable as the former, and hence as worthy of belief, would confirm the latter. Middleton met the difficulty by rejecting all testimony to miracles after the close of the apostolic age. When it was suggested that the New Testament miracles might be treated in a like summary manner, he took the position that the New Testament account of miracles was inspired, and therefore beyond the reach of criticism.
So likewise I say, orthodox Christians were disposed to meet the application of this principle of Historical Criticism under consideration. They protested against the application of it to sacred history. They insisted that the marvelous occurrences related in the Bible, and which read so much like myth or legend, were recorded by inspired writers, hence above criticism. The exception pleaded, however, was not granted. There were bold spirits both within the church as well as outside of it, who did not hesitate, at least so far as the Old Testament was concerned, to apply the new methods of criticism to sacred history.
The conclusions of those who started with the hypothesis that what we call the miraculous is impossible, would not be difficult to forecast. From the outset, with them, the Old Testament was doomed. In the wonderful incidents related as the experience of the patriarchs, of Moses, Aaron, Joshua and the kings and prophets of Israel, this school of critics could discern a striking parallel to the legends of Rome, of Greece and Egypt; and as readily rejected the one as the other. They rejected also the cosmogony of Genesis, insisting that it was not the history of the creation but poetry, and as such must be regarded, but not as fact.
Suspicion once cast upon the historical value of sacred writings, the critics grew bolder and declared that portions of the sacred narrative presented the appearance of being simply myths; and from this by degrees it soon became the fashion to attach a legendary character to the whole of the Old Testament. It was decided by the same class of critics that the whole narrative, in the main, rests upon oral tradition and that that tradition was not written until long after the supposed events occurred. Moreover, when the old traditions were written, the work was done by poets bent rather on glorifying their country than upon recording facts; and it is claimed that at times they did not hesitate to allow imagination to amplify the oral traditions or at need to invent new occurrences, to fill up blanks in their annals. The authorship of the sacred books was held to be a matter of great uncertainty, as well as the date at which they were written; but certainly they were not written until long after the dates usually assigned for their production. This style of criticism not only got rid of the cosmogony of Genesis, but discredited as histories the whole collection of books comprising the Old Testament. The Fall of man, that fact which gives meaning to the atonement of Christ, and without which the scheme of Christian salvation is but an idle fable—was regarded as merely