It will be freely admitted that God's foreknowledge, whether based on foreordination or not, is absolute and eternal. It covered the fall of humanity and the need of redemption as completely as it did the fore-purpose of creation; and this at once gives the same absolute certainty to the redemptive basis as belongs to the creative and perfective. For all theology acknowledges that creation itself is a free act of God—not an absolute reality like the immanent activity or opera ad intra of the Trinity. Absoluteness of that kind is not sought or supposed to be found in the necessity for the Incarnation. The only absoluteness sought is that of the free "eternal purpose of love in Jesus Christ." And as the foreknowledge of God covered the future fact of sin as truly as the creation, though He stood in different casual relation to the two, His love could act as absolutely in the purpose to redeem as in the purpose to create. Each purpose was a purpose of free love, and eternally chosen in the same absoluteness of love's foresight and free fore-determination. Creation itself is an ethical act of free love. The choice to create was in full foresight of the after need of redemption; and so in the Divine foresight and Divine freedom the Incarnation is eternally grounded, and with equal degree of absoluteness, on the Divine side, as is the cosmic creation. Thus the Incarnation needs nothing more for its eternal certainty and absolute choice in the Divine plan than the eternally foreseen needs of a fallen humanity. To put it apart from this, on the other basis of a free, eternally predetermined necessity for completing an unfinished state of creation gains nothing of appreciable value.

There is no evading this conclusion except by denial of God's foreknowledge of contingent events. Though this denial was made of old by Cicero, and is made by Socinians generally, and by Martensen, Rothe, and some others, it is not made by Dr. Dorner, and is made, I presume, by few of those who have adopted this idea of absolute Christianity.

BIBLICAL SCIENCE AND THE HIGHER CRITICISM. By PROFESSOR WILLIAM ARNOLD STEVENS, D.D. (The Standard, Chicago).—Assuming that we recognize the function and acknowledge the importance of Biblical science, I wish to discuss our duty as Christian scholars in reference to the Higher Criticism; what view we ought to take of it, and in what attitude we ought to stand towards it, in the present crisis of religious thought. My object is, first, to show what Biblical Criticism, particularly the Higher Criticism, is; secondly, to make it evident that critical research is legitimate Biblical science, and hence that it is not only to be welcomed and encouraged, but that it is obligatory upon the Christian scholar; thirdly, to state certain principles that condition and regulate critical research; in other words, the criteria of legitimate Biblical Criticism. In this course of thought I shall be guided, and my argument will be sustained, by the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Thess. v. 20-21.

Taking up our first question, let us ask what Biblical Criticism, particularly the Higher Criticism, is. In general we may answer that it is simply a set of processes employed in the science of history. Let us remember that there is a science of history-a branch of knowledge entitled by its methods and results to rank among the sciences. By science I mean not mathematical or physical science, but any department of verified and systematized knowledge. History has now an acknowledged place among the sciences. The function of criticism in the domain of history is to "prove all things" by the application of the resources and methods of modern discovery and science-to distinguish fact from fable, real history from supposed history. In the history of the Swiss republic William Tell appears as its national

hero and the founder of its independence. The story is well known. The Emperor Albert, in 1307, had determined to annex the three Forest Cantons to the ancestral domains of the House of Hapsburg. As a test of obedience, and to break the unyielding temper of the sturdy mountaineers, his governor, Gessler, had a hat placed on a pole in Altorf, to which every passer-by was required to do obeisance. Tell, cross-bow in hand, and leading his little son, defiantly refused, and being brought before Gessler, was commanded to prove his skill in archery by shooting an apple from his boy's head at the distance of eighty paces. No pleas or tears could move the tyrant; the father must shoot or both father and son must die. He shot, and the arrow split the apple into halves. But Tell had been observed to conceal an arrow under his vest. The reason being demanded, he exclaims, "To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain my boy." Gessler commands him to be taken across the lake and immured in a dungeon "where light of sun or moon shall never reach him," but from this fate he is delivered by a storm, which enables him to escape, and afterward to become the deliverer of his country by slaying Gessler. It is only within a few years that the researches of a Swiss scholar established almost to a demonstration the thoroughly unhistorical character of the whole story, which, indeed, had been suspected and often asserted before. In this instance the work of criticism has been destructive. But generally, as in the case of the Homeric poems, and in Roman history, its constructive results are far more notable and important, though in the very nature of the case they do not so impress the imagination, and are not so easily described. The result of criticism, in the case of Lysias's account of the proceedings of the Thirty Tyrants has been to confirm his testimony, and on the whole to establish the character of his orations as sources. In the case of Herodotus the positive results of criticism have been still more marked; the value and general veracity of his histories have been established beyond all question. Further on I may speak of what historical criticism has done in a positive and constructive way for the writings of Luke, or the Gospel of John. The point, however, which I wish especially to emphasize in bringing to a close the first step of the discussion is this: The Higher Criticism is properly and legitimately scientific research. It seeks and it gains knowledge, verified knowledge.

Again, criticism seems to many to imply unbelief, hostility, or denial; but surely the cross-examination of a witness in a court-room does not of itself imply that his testimony is impeached. It does imply the necessity, and the difficulty also, of discrimination between truth and error; its aim is to elicit the truth. Now, substitute for the word Higher Criticism, another broader term, but one which exactly describes it, Historical Research, and it will be one step towards removing much popular prejudice. It is not a Mephistopheles among the sciences, "Der Geist der stets verneint," the spirit which is always denying. True, it has often fallen into the hands of charlatans and cranks-what scientific method has not? It is true that unbelievers have employed it to attack our faith and accomplish the overthrow of the Christian Church-but what science have they not so employed? That Biblical Criticism is not Rationalism, and is not based on Rationalism, I hope to show later on.

After the foregoing statement of what Biblical Criticism is, of its object and scientific character, it seems almost needless to urge my second proposition, namely, that Biblical Criticism is legitimate Biblical Science, and as such to be welcomed and encouraged. My contention is this: The Christian scholar cannot, must not, think of science or reason as antagonistic to faith. Science is of God, as truly as revela. tion is of God; we have learned this lesson as far as physical science is concerned, and do not for a moment admit that any physical fact can possibly be in conflict

with any revealed word. Now, historical criticism is also science. It is the ascertaining of facts by scientific methods-searching not only whether alleged facts were, but what they were. If we admit that Christianity is an historical religion, that it bases its claims ultimately upon the actual occurrence in human history of certain visible and audible events, it is idle to deny the right and the duty of ascertaining just what those events were, not only from the Bible, but from all other

sources.

II. The question at issue, I repeat, is one of method-not whether this and that critic is evangelical and orthodox, not whether this or that theory concerning Isaiah or any other book of the Bible is a true theory. Now, is the critical method of historical research that I have defined Scripturally justified? "But prove all things": the Apostle enjoins upon the Thessalonian Church the duty of investigation and proof in matters of Christian truth. "All things "-all thought and all fact that reach us through human sources are to be proved, subjected to the tests of reason. "All things": some admit the right and duty of investigation in human science, but not in the science of things Divine-in the domain of physical truth, but not in the domain of Biblical truth. They hold that where the written revelation begins reason ends, and proof is not to be sought for. Our text does not sanction this distinction. Prophesyings, matters of religious revelation, are the very matters of which the Apostle is speaking.

In order to define my position more sharply, this is further to be said: Exegesis implies criticism; there can be no exegesis worthy the name of science without it. This means that we are not simply to take the Bible and learn from it what the facts of history are, but also to take those facts and learn from them what the Bible is. For instance, in the much-mooted question of the enrolment under Quirinius, related in the second of Luke: we cannot decide it by assuming as final the absolute accuracy of Luke. If from other sources we can ascertain in just what years Quirinius was governor of Syria, whether he was governor once or twice, and further to what years that imperial census belongs, we shall not only be enabled to put the right interpretation upon Luke's language, but also be enabled to pronounce upon the greater or less accuracy of his narrative.

Let us now consider, in the third place, certain principles that condition and regulate critical research. First, Biblical criticism must be dominated by a moral purpose. "Hold fast that which is good," is the Apostle's precept. Reason has its claims; but reason-the critical intellect is made, in the constitution of the soul, subject to conscience. Let me try to explain the bearing of this principle. Observe that the Apostle does not say, Hold fast to that which is true, but to that which is good (To kalon). To kalon is the morally true, the nobly true. Every historic fact has its moral side; we are to see that side; it is the moral significance of events that we are to seize upon and appropriate. The Biblical criticism that renounces the moral aim may be useful in collecting data; but its verdict on the data in any crucial case carries no weight whatever in Christian theology. It is, if not an immoral, at least a non-moral, an irresponsible criticism. The French scholar, Renan, is a flagrant example. His industry is unwearied, his learning vast, his instincts are in many ways those of the true scholar. But who will affirm that the moral motive pervades and dominates his work? It is rather the aesthetic motive that rules-an æstheticism that is partly Greek and partly Parisian. His intellectual affinity, if not his sympathy, is with Nero quite as much as with Paul. Even in Baur, a greater scholar and a nobler intellect than Renan, this moral sense was too weak to make the highest achievement possible. Baur did not fail to see that the conversion of Paul was a crucial fact in

history; but in interpreting it he failed to recognize its full ethical character-that it was not only a change of opinion, but a revolutionary change of character. It is the vice of such criticism that it is too easily satisfied with negations. It requires no religious postulates to start with, it has no moral goal in view. Reuss's remark with reference to the earlier rationalistic school in Germany, "It had no aspiration after the ideal," applies to most of its successors. Its methods and its tendencies were necessarily destructive. On the other hand, fidelity to a moral aim naturally involves constructive effort, both in an intellectual and an ethical sense. "Let us follow after things whereby we may edify one another "—that is, build up our common faith and life.

The second condition and principle of critical research is the recognition of prophecy. "Despise not prophesyings." Here is a distinct issue between a believing Church and rationalism. Rationalism, in the proper historic sense of the term, defining a well-known school of thought, denies the fact and the authority of prophecy; or else, in order not to deny, constructs a new definition of prophecy which leaves out its distinctive features. Now any school of critics which adopts rationalism as its working principle, violates at the outset one of the fundamental conditions of scientific method. It adopts at the beginning of a purely historical investigation postulates which are foreign to the sphere of the science of history, and which may evidently render it impossible for the critic to deal impartially with the testimony. When a Biblical scholar like Oort (of the Holland school to which Kuenen belongs) assumes that the Biblical prophets, when they said, "Thus saith the Lord," or "The Lord spake to me," were simply employing rhetorical figures, just such as any poet might use to set forth a thought of his own-this is not legitimate Biblical criticism, but deistic philosophy, a denial outright of a fundamental and essential conception not only in Christianity but in spheres of thought outside of Christianity.

Our third principle of critical research is still more broadly and distinctly exclusive of rationalism. It requires the recognition of the immediate agency within the Christian Church of the personal Holy Spirit. "Quench not the Spirit." Rationalism, if it meant simply independent thought over against blind submission to the authority of a priest or a church, would be that for which Protestant Christianity has stood from the beginning. But it is now well understood to mean something else. It allows no supremely authoritative word from God the Spirit, and it explains Christianity by purely natural causes, either eliminating the supernatural in history and prophecy, or else (which comes to the same thing) by breaking down the distinction between the natural and the supernatural. This principle, I say, is in the very nature of the case either deistic or atheistic; it cannot logically remain in the Christian Church. The North American Review, after defining rationalists as those who "make the reason supreme," goes on to divide the Christian Church into "three great parties, evangelicals, churchmen, and rationalists." In other words, rationalism is one of three schools of Christian thought. Every clear thinker must see, as Strauss saw from the start, that rationalism and historic Christianity are mutually exclusive and antagonistic. We may be sure, let me add, that the Higher Criticism, in the proper sense of the term, is not rationalism, is not infidelity, is not an enemy to the Faith or to the Church. We owe it partly to the work which it has accomplished within sixty years, that we are to-day able to understand the meaning and the mission of this wonderful Gospel of John as they have never been understood before during eighteen Christian centuries.

I know that this period of questioning and research is fraught with danger to the faith of many; but we shall not protect or establish the faith of the Church by putting

questioning and research under ban. I know that questions are being raised which it will take long to answer. But it is the daily joy of the Christian scholar that his face is towards the light. Only we may not expect all the truth at once. It belongs to our earthly probation that we must often obtain the truth by disentangling it from the error with which it is perpetually interwoven. Let us take care not to encourage in the ministry or in the Church a religious agnosticism, sincere but narrow-minded and unreasoning. I have written "that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things wherein thou hast been instructed," says the Evangelist Luke, "having traced the course of all things accurately from the first "-one of the early instances of historical research.

MYSTICAL BUDDHISM IN CONNECTION WITH THE YOGA PHILOSOPHY OF THE HINDUS. By SIR M. MONIER-WILLIAMS, LL.D. (Christian Thought).-The modern interest in Theosophy, makes it necessary for the Christian student to inquire into all related subjects, and apprehend worthily that characteristic of the Eastern mind of which Buddhism and Theosophy are expressions. The first idea of Buddhism is intellectual enlightenment, but it has its own theory of enlightenment. We see the essential distinction between these Eastern philosophies and the Christian knowledge through revelation and faith, when we learn that "by true knowledge Buddhism means knowledge acquired by man through his own intellectual faculties and through his own inner consciousness, instincts, and intuitions, unaided by any external or supernatural revelation of any kind." It is but one of man's self-efforts to construct a religion.

But Buddhism, in the carrying out of its own theory of entire self-dependence in the search after truth, was compelled to be somewhat inconsistent with itself. It enjoined self-restraint and separation from the world for the attainment of perfect knowledge, and yet it encouraged association and combination for mutual help. It established a universal brotherhood of celibate monks, all bound together by the common aim of self-conquest. The Buddha wisely abstained at first from all mystical teaching. Early Buddhism had no mysteries reserved for a privileged circle, but the importance which it attached to abstract meditation could not fail in the end to encourage the growth of mystical ideas, and, as a fact, such ideas were in some countries carried to the most extravagant extremes.

Now, consideration is limited to the growth and development of mystical Buddhism in India through its connection with the system called Yoga and Yogacara. The Yoga practices were prevalent in India before the time of the Buddha. It is known that, after abandoning his home and worldly associations, he resorted to certain Brahmin ascetics who were practising Yoga. That word literally means "union," and the proper aim of every man who practised Yoga was the mystic union (or rather re-union) of his own spirit with the one eternal soul or spirit of the universe, and the acquisition of Divine knowledge through that union.

The Yoga system grew, and came in the end to have two objects. The earlier was the higher Yoga. It aimed only at union with the Spirit of the Universe. The more developed system sought to acquire miraculous powers by bringing the body under control of the will, and by completely abstracting the soul from body and mind, and isolating it in its own essence. This condition is called Kaivalya. In the fifth century B.C., when the Buddha began his career, the latter and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known. In those days men simply craved for union with the Supreme Being, and absorption into His essence; and expected to accomplish this by (1) bodily mortification, and (2) abstract meditation. Intense concentration