instinct. No author's name, no theory of its composition affects its position. Whatever its imperfection, it has impressed itself upon us as the simple story of God's dealing with men.

to Christ.

IV

Be it remembered that I am not The Appeal here discussing with Christian men our reason for believing in the inspiration of the Old Testament. I am but concerned with the story of the making of the Bible. I am trying to put myself back into the position of the old Jewish Church, trying to understand the compelling impulse which made them mark off certain books as of divine authority. I put myself in their place. I feel with them the insistent conviction, independent of authors' names method of composition, that there is something in, these books that is essentially divine. They put a pressure on my conscience and spiritual instinct of the same kind (though not quite in the same degree) as that which the books of Euclid put on my intellect. When I have studied a proposition of Euclid I feel absolutely certain that the conclusion is true-that it must be true and that not only now and here but in the farthest ages,

or

in the most distant planet. It could never be other than true. Whether the books of Euclid were composed by one man or several, in one year or during centuries does not affect the position. That is a matter of mere literary interest. The books, however they came, have an inherent impelling power that grips me on the intellectual side. The great utterances of Scripture have a power of the same kind, though from the nature of the case not quite in the same degree, that grips me on my conscience and spiritual side. That is the basis of their authority. That is why the old Jews felt that God was in them. That was why they grew into a Bible.

'It

But for us Christians this conviction has increased a thousandfold by the attitude of the Christ Himself toward this Old Testament. was the Bible of His education. It was the Bible of His ministry. He took for granted its fundamental doctrines about creation, man, righteousness, God's providence and purpose. He accepted it as the preparation for Himself and taught His disciples to find Him in it. He used it to justify His mission and to illumine the mystery of the cross. Above all He fed His own soul

with its contents and in the great crises of His life sustained Himself upon it as the solemn word of God.'

This does not mean that He thought its teaching free from all imperfections of its human teachers, or that criticism may not have something to teach us of its origin or composition. He criticises and supersedes some of its precepts. (See Matt. v. 21, 27, 33, 38, 43.) He suggests that it is but a stage toward His own higher teaching. "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time. . . but I say unto you" something higher still. But whatever its imperfection He certainly gave His full sanction to the belief that the Bible which He loved and studied and used was God's divine authoritative teaching for men. In these days of disquiet about the Old Testament it is surely well to keep that fact in mind.

The New Testament stands in a different position from the Old. For there the central figure is the Son of God Himself. Every word of His was, of course, regarded by His followers as divine and the Books were accepted because they were believed to tell truly of Him.

Yet as in the case of the Old Testament, the appeal is still to the divine instinct in men. Jesus did not come with compelling external authority, with thunderings and lightnings and the glory of God, forcing men to believe. He came in the

form of a carpenter's son and made his appeal to men's hearts and consciences, as the Old Book had done which testified of Him. And the hearts and consciences of men responded.

This is all we need say here of the position of the New Testament, since the discussion of it comes before us later.

CHAPTER III

Disquiet, and How

to Meet it.

CRITICISM AND THE BIBLE

I

BEFORE discussing what modern research has to tell about the making of the Bible, it was necessary for us first to do what we have done-try to understand the impulse which led the Church to make certain books into a Bible, that thus we might realize the solid foundation on which the Bible rests. For if its authority rests not on any external miracle, nor on any author's name, nor on any theory of its composition, nor on any pronouncement of Church or Council or Pope or Saint, but on its own compelling power in every age to convince men that it came from God, then its foundations are safe enough, and the question how the books grew or by whom they were written or edited or brought together into a Bible can be discussed without anxiety. It is a secondary matter, a matter of mere literary