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Deut. xix. 14, "Thou shalt not remove thy neighbour's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." It is asserted that the allusion to the old landmark presupposes a long abode in the promised land. But is anything more simple? The lawgiver is legislating for the long future. He takes his point of view by anticipation, as the last part of the verse shews ("in thine inheritance which thou shalt inherit "), in the land they were to enter, and prohibits the removal of the landmarks which the fathers of the nation would have set for the whole course of the nation's history. The criticism which would preclude him from speaking thus of the old landmarks which they of old time had set, because it was not yet done, should go further, and preclude him from speaking of any landmarks at all, for none had yet been placed for Israel.

Exod. xxii. 29, "Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits." Dr Davidson, emphasising the word “delay,” says, that as this is the first recorded legislation on the subject, and is merely an injunction not to delay it, the command supposes the offering to be in existence, and hence was written after the settlement in the land. This is small criticism. The expression evidently means "promptly offer thy first ripe fruits,"i. e. at once on their ripening. It is possible that the form of the commandment is modified by the fact that the Israelites were already familiar with the idea of offering the first to God in case of the offspring of animals and men (xiii. 2); indeed, they may have been familiar with the idea of offering first-fruits; for, as Winer shews, the practice is well known among heathen nations, and existed in ancient Egypt.*

It is objected by the same writer that the command (Exod. xxiii. 19), "The first-fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the Lord thy God," presupposes the existence of the Tabernacle in Palestine. How can a writer make such a declaration, when he finds the command embedded in the summary directions for the permanent establishment of the three great festivals, when the way is prepared for it by the direction just before (ver. 17), that three times a year all males shall appear before the Lord, and when the immediate sequel (chap. xxv.) contains detailed directions for the structure of the very tabernacle here briefly alluded to?

The same author quotes Leviticus xxvi. 34, 35, 43, in which it is said concerning the sabbatical years and the captivity: "then shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths, . . . because

Diodorus Siculus, i. 14. Sce fuller references in Winer's Realwörterbuch, Article "Erstlinge."

Objections made by Dr Colenso.

845

it did not rest when ye dwelt upon it." This, it is said, must have been written after actual disregard of the sabbatical and jubilee years. But the most careless reader will observe that it is the sequel of a full and stringent legislation on the whole subject (chap. xxv.), establishing the institution; and is part of a long and solemn injunction to observe these ordinances and "keep my sabbaths" (xxvi. 2). The lawgiver first sets forth the blessed reward of obedience, then draws out in detail the punishments which shall follow the consequence of future disobedience, or, as he phrases it, because the land did not rest [will not have rested] in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt [will have dwelt] upon it. This is the whole case, and it hardly calls for notice, except to shew what straws men will throw into the scale. Every passage in the Hebrew Bible that contains an utterance concerning the future and the relative past of that future, can be treated in the same manner.

To these passages of Dr Davidson the bishop of Natal adds the phrase "beyond Jordan," as used in Gen. L. 11; Deut. i. 1, 5. He alleges that as Moses was approaching the Jordan from the west, the phrase in his mouth should designate the western side of the river, and not the eastern; hence Moses did not write it. The sufficient reply is found in his quotation from Bleek containing the objection," that the above formula was a standing designation for the country east of the Jordan, which might be used in this sense without regard to the position of the writer. So it is often employed in later times.' It is like Transalpine and Cisalpine Gaul. So Gesenius. Bleek, however, would abate the force of the admission by saying that most probably the phrase first formed itself among the Hebrews after the settlement in Canaan. But the land was occupied, its modes of speech settled, and this great landmark there before the time of Abraham. Something more than a conjecture or supposed probability, therefore, is necessary to give any weight to the objection.*

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The attempts to find evidence that the Pentateuch was composed in Palestine, certainly make a very feeble show.

(vi.) It is further asserted, that certain "legendary and traditional elements" of the narrative "involving insuperable

* A fuller statement of the case would add that the phrase is sometimes used from a writer's position, and that the same writer (especially Joshua) fluctuates. In Joshua its prevailing usage is as a geographical term, east of the Jordan (i. 14, 15; ix. 10; xiv. 3; xvii. 5), in the first of which cases he appends "eastward," as if to define the true meaning of the phrase. In three instances he uses it from his point of view to designate the western side (v 1; xii. 7 ; xxii. 7), but avoids misapprehension in each case by adding, westward; so that the settled geographical meaning, when used without explanation in Joshua, is, from the outset, east of Jordan.

difficulties and inconsistencies," shew that Moses could not have been the author of it. Here we meet, mainly in the form of quotation from Professor Norton, the statements, which Dr Colenso has repeated at third hand, concerning the mustering and marching of two millions of people, " in a single night,” and the difficulties of life in the wilderness.

But Dr Davidson's closing remarks on this head are deeply significant, as shewing his fundamental objection to any record of the supernatural. "Indeed, it is only necessary to examine the history, as it lies before us, to find in it a mythological, traditional, and exaggerated element, forbidding the literal acceptation of the whole. The character of Pharaoh under the circumstances detailed; the ten miraculous plagues, which spared the Israelites while they fell upon the Egyptians; the dogmatic mode in which it is narrated how Moses and Aaron presented themselves before Pharaoh; and the crowd of extraordinary interpositions of Jehovah on behalf of the people as they journeyed through the wilderness, shew the influence of the later traditions on the narrative in dressing it out with fabulous traits. The laws of nature are unchangeable. God does not directly and suddenly interfere with them on behalf of his creatures; neither does he so palpably or constantly intermeddle with men's little concerns. The entire history is cast in the mould of a post-Mosaic age, unconscious of critical consistency, and investing ancestral times with undue importance."

Here we have, perhaps, the gist of the whole difficulty. Evidence can weigh little with one who determines that "the laws of nature are unchangeable," and that "God does not directly and suddenly interfere with them on behalf of his creatures." The remark cuts wide and deep; it sweeps alike the time of Moses and of Christ.

* Davidson's Introduction, vol. i. p. 100.

Biblical and Miscellaneous Intelligence. 847

VIII.-BIBLICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS
INTELLIGENCE.

In one of the late numbers of the Westminster Review, an article appeared on "Liberal French Protestantism," in which the writer, referring to such works as the "Christologie" of Athanase Coquerel, the "Essais de Critique Religieuse" of Dr Albert Reville, Colani's Sermons, and similar productions, talks in arrogant and contemptuous terms of the opposition which these "liberal" writings have awakened. "The clerical parties," he says, "which during the last few years have affected or felt an alarm at the supposed undermining of Christianity in this country by a few clergymen, have made constant use, in the place of better argument, of the cry of exploded Germanism. It is likely that most of those who repeated the cuckoo cry were really unaware of the extent to which Biblical criticism and the inquiries into the origin and essence of Christianity, have recently been carried simultaneously in many parts of Europe, more particularly in Holland and in France. Among ourselves, the recent rapid spread of liberal opinions concerning the Bible and Christian doctrine, has been somewhat quickened by the attempts made to extinguish Professor Jowett, Dr Williams, and Mr Wilson, by episcopal taboo, and ecclesiastical prosecution. Very similar, as we expect, will be the result of certain proceedings of the orthodox protestant party in Paris, in the matter of M. Athanase Coquerel, fils." This style of vaticination pervades the article, which is characterised by a series of bitter attacks on the authority, miracles, and teaching of the New Testament, and concludes by predicting that "far more important than any disputes between episcopalians and presbyterians, churchmen and congregationalists, friends of an establishment and liberation society men, is a question which must cross-cut all these old divisions: Is the Bible, and the Bible only, according to a famous dictum, the religion of protestants? And if it be so, what is its meaning, and what is its worth?"

At a time when the enemies of our holy faith are so boastful and pretentious, when they seem rather proud than otherwise of the number of their assailants, and of the sensation they have excited in the orthodox camp, and at the same time so sure of the ultimate triumph of their opinions, we hail as highly seasonable the appearance of an able article in the Quarterly Review of July last, on "Freethinking, its History and Tendencies." The object of this paper is to prove that a good deal of what is paraded as a demonstration of modern German erudition, is in substance a réchauffé of the forgotten criticisms of our old English deists. But, besides this, it is shewn that in the alarm excited by modern attacks on Christianity, and in the number of replies which these have drawn forth, we have only a repetition of what took place during the last century; while, from the gradual triumph of the Bible, and of Christian truth, and from the oblivion into which the names of its assailants fell, we may safely

predict similar results from what is now going forward. "Men like Hume and Gibbon, or even Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke in England, like Voltaire and Rousseau in France, like Lessing and Wieland in Germany, may have written in the same spirit, and may have been as heterodox in their belief as their less distinguished countrymen; but they so little owe their literary reputation exclusively or principally to their heterodoxy, that their reputation would now in all probability be as great or greater than it is, had their thoughts on religion never been given to the world."

Toland, Collins, Tindal, Woolston, Morgan, Chubb, Annet. What kind of recollection do these names call up in the minds of English readers of the present day? Are they, to the majority, anything more than a bare catalogue of names- Alcandrumque aliumque Noëmonaque Prytanimque'known, perhaps, in a general way as Deistical writers, much as the abovementioned Virgilian, or rather Homeric, worthies are known as soldiers; but, in other respects, not much more distinguished as regards personality and individual character? Yet these were men of mark at their day, the essayists and reviewers of the last century, attracting nearly as much attention, and receiving nearly as many criticisms, as their successors are doing at present. Nor were some of them without confident hope of the lasting effects which their works were destined to produce. Tindal prefaces his 'Christianity as old as the Creation' with the declaration that he thinks he has laid down such plain and evident rules as may enable men of the meanest capacity to distinguish between religion and superstition, and has represented the former in every part so beautiful, so amiable, and so strongly affecting, that they who in the least reflect must be highly in love with it.' And, towards the conclusion of the work, he sums up his estimate of its argument in terms equally flattering: For my part, I think, there's none who wish well to mankind, but must likewise wish this hypothesis to be true; and can there be a greater proof of its truth, than that it is, in all its parts, so exactly calculated for the good of mankind, that either to add to or to take from it will be to their manifest prejudice?' Chubb, in the preface to his True Gospel,' asserts that he has rendered the gospel of Christ defendable upon rational principles.' Annet tells his readers that his end is to hold forth the acceptable Light of truth, which makes men free, enables them to break the bands of creed-makers and imposers asunder, and to cast their cords from us; and to set at liberty captives bruised with their chains; to convince those that believe they see, or that see only through faith's optics, that their blindness remaineth.' Woolston boasts that he will 'cut out such a piece of work for our Boylean Lectures as shall hold them tug so long as the ministry of the letter and an hireling priesthood shall last.' And truly, if temporary popularity were any security for lasting reputation, Woolston had good grounds for his boast. His discourses are said to have been sold to the extent of thirty thousand copies, and to have called forth in a short time as many as sixty replies. Swift's satirical lines testify to his popularity; while in other respects they might pass for a description of a right reverend critic of the present day.

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'Here's Woolston's tracts, the twelfth edition,
"Tis read by every politician;

The country members, when in town,
To all their boroughs send them down;
You never met a thing so smart,
The courtiers have them all by heart.
Those maids of honour who can read
Are taught to use them for their creed.

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