FROM THE “BIBLE LEAGUE QUARTERLY” OF APRIL.
“ARE workers in the mission-field to preach the Christ of the inspired Scriptures or the Christ of ‘Critical’ conjecture?” The question is raised by Mr. James Monro, C.B., late Director of the Ranaghat Medical Mission, and it is well that those “who love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness” should have their attention directed to some of the circumstances and facts which warrant the raising by so devoted a missionary of such a question.
In a recent issue of The New York Observer, Dr. Henry Jessup, for fifty years a missionary in Syria, writes: “It is about time that some of our theological teachers realised the mischief they are doing in unsettling and upsetting the faith of the young men whom they instruct. Not a few of these young men have somehow got into the foreign missionary field and are ventilating their crude theories, producing variance and dissention among both foreign and native labourers, thus paralyzing their spiritual influence. If a man does not believe in the Deity of Jesus Christ what vocation has he among Moslems or Jews? If he does not believe in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, as portrayed in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and the repeated utterances of our Lord and his apostles, what message has he to carry to the unevangelized world? Why should he put the Church at home to the expense of sending him to tell the Hindoos, the Chinese, the Africans, that he really does not know what he believes?”
Pandita Ramabai, than whom it would be difficult to find a brighter or more conspicuous example of the saving and sanctifying power of “the faith once for all delivered unto the saints,” towards the end of last year addressed an appeal to “the missionaries (in India) engaged in the translation of the Bible.” In the course of this appeal the Pandita says: “It is pitiful that certain missionaries who are entrusted with the translation of the Bible should try to introduce higher critical thought into it, by the arbitrary use of certain meanings and pronunciations of the Hebrew and Chaldee words, as given in certain higher critical works—setting at nought the opinions of hundreds of scholars who have prepared the authorised versions and the English and American revised versions of the Bible. Why the opinions of one or two individuals should be accepted against that of hundreds of greater scholars is a problem. And why the Christians in India should be compelled to depend upon the opinions of a few individuals is a greater problem.
“It is grievous that translators or revisers of the Bible in the vernaculars should simply ignore the interests of more than two millions of native Christians. . . . I hear that the word ‘Jehovah’ is to be introduced vowelled according to the latest opinions of the higher critics in the Karnatic translation of the Bible. This can, of course, be easily done in India, where no one will question the man who changes the most sacred of all names in the way he likes. We must draw a clear line lest we should all become higher critics, and instead of preaching the gospel, should be teaching the laws of higher criticism in the Sunday Schools and in the Churches. This higher criticism will not make a single convert to Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ was used to save many, many of us from hopeless idolatry and dark sin, and we do not now need higher criticism. I entreat all those who are considering higher criticism to give their time and prayerful labour to the teaching and preaching of the simple gospel to our people, and not to introduce higher criticism into their theological schools and Sunday Schools.”
The veteran missionary, Dr. St. Clair Tisdall, some five or six years ago, said: “If higher criticism be victorious there can be no question that, in overthrowing Christianity, it will bring missionary work to an inglorious close.” It is our painful duty to show that men who have gone forth as missionaries are propagating that infidel view of the Bible which carries with it the denial of the absolute trustworthiness of the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose word and Whose work are the sole basis and inspiration of evangelical missionary enterprise.
A missionary paper, published in Calcutta, contains the following question and answer: “How did sin come into the world?” Answer: “We have no better account of it than that given in Genesis iii. This account is doubtless allegorical, but it represents the true spiritual facts.” What likelihood is there that the “no better” conception of the Scriptures will encourage faith in the revelation which the Scriptures alone contain? In another issue of the same paper these words occur: “For the book of Deuteronomy, though there are those who adhere to the direct Mosaic authorship, we believe that the general lines of modern thought are true. The book was compiled by some writer of the prophetic school in the seventh century B.C. . . . When he drew up this code he followed the ancient custom in putting it into the mouth of Moses” (the italics are ours). This in a paper published professedly for the evangelization of educated Indians!
At the Bengali Christian Conference, held in Calcutta, 3rd April, 1903, an essay was read by a minister with the purpose of showing that the higher criticism is not hostile to the Bible or to Christ. The essay contains the following sentences: “Thucydides and all ancient historians allowed themselves a certain freedom in composing speeches and putting them into the mouths of their historical characters. They did this with a good conscience, and without any intention to deceive. Why should we be shocked if the Bible historians in some instances did the same? At the best it is only crude literary morality; it is not literary immorality of which those writers and editors would stand convicted.”
Could a more pathetic proof be found of the demoralizing effect of the Rationalistic view of the Bible on professedly Christian teachers who hold it than such an argument as this? And is it possible to exaggerate the anti-Christian influence of men holding and propagating such views in the midst of non-Christian peoples?
The essayist just quoted indicates his attitude towards the Lord Jesus Christ in these significant words: “It seems very questionable whether Christ in any part of His teaching intended to pronounce a verdict on the age or authorship or the literary character of any Old Testament book, and so shut out, by the weight of His authority, all future investigation of these matters.” If there is not here a spirit of revolt against Him who said: “I have not spoken from Myself, but the Father which sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment what I should say and what I should speak,” the writer has grievously wronged himself in the language used.
All down the Christian centuries the assault on the Word of God has been maintained, but it has never been just what it is to-day. Never before have there been ranged against the Bible so many men who have, so to say, eaten its bread, taken its wages, and worn its uniform. And this aspect of the battle against the book presents itself most tragically where those who have gone into heathen and Mohammedan lands ostensibly to preach the gospel are found fighting against the faith which it was only reasonable to expect they would willingly die for.
In the Review of Religions for January, 1906, the Editor, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, of Quadian, in the Punjab, a Mohammedan, who, claiming to be the Messiah, started the magazine to propagate his views and controvert Christianity, quotes from an article in a missionary magazine. Referring to what the writer of that article says as to possible limitations of the human knowledge of our Lord regarding questions of the authorship of the Old Testament writings, this Mohammedan editor writes: “This is only the first stage in the downfall of orthodox Christianity, and the next will follow when the Christian missionaries will take courage to apply those methods of criticism to the books of the New Testament, which they now apply to the books of the Old, and the last stage will follow when Jesus Christ is handled in the same manner as other religious leaders.”
The most distressing thing about these words is the fact that they are provoked—if not justified—by the published views of a Christian missionary. . . .
We have recently heard of a missionary on furlough who attended a meeting of ministers in the homeland at which the rationalistic views of the Bible were freely expressed. Trembling with emotion, and with tears in his eyes, he said: “Brethren, how can I go back to my converts in China? How can I tell them what you have said this evening?” Many a missionary coming back from his field is broken-hearted at the teaching which he hears openly given in this country to-day regarding the Scriptures. Many faithful witnesses for Christ are moved to ask, “If this critical teaching is true, what message have I to give to the heathen, whom I have been sent to evangelize?”
But what most concerns us is the appalling fact that already the new view of the Bible, and of the Christ revealed in the Bible, has been taken to heathen lands by professed missionaries of the gospel. We have referred to India. Here is an extract from a letter from a missionary in China: “Alas! the Higher Criticism and the New Theology have come to the mission-field, and some of the missionaries are much affected by the new views. At the services on Sunday afternoons very strange theories have been propagated, and many parts of the Bible done away with.” We must cleave to the Scriptures as attested by Christ, if we would believe in and preach Christ, to Whom the Scriptures testify.
We are debtors to the eight hundred millions who have not heard the gospel, to give them the saving message with all the attestation of its Divine authority with which it reached us.
We appeal to all missionary societies, the trustees of contributions of those who desire the making known throughout the world of the gospel “according to the Scriptures,” to see that the messengers whom they send out preach not the fallible Christ of critical conjecture, but the infallible Christ of the fully inspired and infallible Word of God.
And we further appeal to the Bible-loving contributors to missionary societies to insist that their gifts for the furtherance of the gospel shall not be applied to the diffusion of higher critical views of the Holy Scriptures which alone can make men wise unto salvation.—R. WRIGHT HAY.
Royal Accession Oath.
Mr. Redmond, M.P., has addressed a letter to the Prime Minister in the following terms:—”You may remember that upon the second reading of the Catholic Disabilities Bill, moved by me last year, you spoke very strongly in favour of removing from the Royal Ascension Oath, words which are so very offensive to Catholics. The view of yours, so well expressed, met with, I believe, favour from all quarters of the House, with some few exceptions. Indeed, most of those who did not favour my Bill as a whole, expressed themselves in favour of removing the words in the Royal declaration, of which complaint is so justly made by Catholics throughout the Empire and the world. Under the present sad circumstances, this matter becomes immediately pressing, and I venture to ask you to take such steps as may be necessary to relieve the new King from the obligation, if such really exists, of using language at the commencement of his reign which must deeply wound the feelings and outrage the faith of so many people everywhere.” The Pope’s servants have lost no time in pressing the claims of the Church of Rome.