be to contend not for the Pentateuch, but for a fiction of our own which we have substituted for it. And he also who fights against this, attacks not the giant himself, but only his shadow, a bug-bear standing in his place.

The close connection of a belief in the genuineness of the Pentateuch with a correct and profound exposition of it, appears at once from this, that the first weak attacks on its genuineness had their ground in an utter incapacity of interpretation. In the Clementine Homilies (Patres apostol. ed. Cotel. T. I.) the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is denied on account of a number of difficulties which have no existence except for the crudest understanding. It is there said, viz. that God cannot lie, cannot tempt, because this supposes ignorance, that he cannot repent or be grieved, that he cannot harden the heart, that he, the All-sufficient, can desire no offering, cannot please himself with lambs, etc. Comp. especially homil. 2. 6. 43. 44. The Pentateuch as thus unconsciously falsified by this author was most certainly not genuine.

With Calvin the theological exposition of the Pentateuch reached its highest point-I mean relatively. He stands much higher above those that followed, than above those that preced ed him. It is indeed wonderful how such a man could have such successors. Doubtless, it is to be explained only by the fact that they left him entirely unread-a fact which is indeed every where manifest. It is impossible that he who has thoroughly studied Calvin should be so settled and consistent in shallowness of exposition as they show themselves throughout to be. We will here notice only the three men who have exerted the most extensive influence-Spencer, Clericus, and J. D. Michaelis. Others who had the same tendency, as Grotius,

ficient to warrant the credence of one who is entirely ignorant of their character and doctrines as religious teachers. The internal evidence is not, therefore, however, either less convincing or important.-T.

* See also 6. 52. where the author says, it cannot be true that Noah was drunk, that Abraham had three wives and Jacob four, and that Moses was guilty of manslaughter-a remark that falls of itself as soon as we understand the object of the author not according to our own notions, but as it appears in his work. For then we should see at the commencement of the work, this motto standing: "Lord, to thee belongs the honor, but to us shame and confusion, that the weaknesses of thy chosen ones do, as far as they can consist with virtue in the heart, promote, instead of defeating the object of the work."

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and Marsham, either have not carried it through so consistently or did not make the exposition of the Pentateuch a subject of pecial attention; so that the marks of their influence are lost in that of their leaders.*

Spencer, whose labors in the exposition of the Pentateuch lie before us in his work de legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus, has in this day found a fellow-spirit in Strauss. There is in both the same acuteness, united with such an incredible want of depth that one is often tempted to regard their acuteness itself as doubtful. In both the same icy coldness, the same impotence in a religious point of view, the same virtuoso-spirit, so to speak, in repressing all pious feeling, so that even the faintest religious emotions do not show themselves in them, to interrupt the perfect carrying out of their principles. In both, the same clearness and precision of representation, which indeed, are so much the easier to attain the more the understanding becomes isolated and brings into subjection the other faculties of the soul. There is this difference between the two, that Spencer was satisfied with operating against Revelation, at a single point. This difference however is accidental, and is caused only by the difference of the times in which they lived. One cannot free himself from the thought, that were Spencer now living, he would lay aside this modesty; nay, that he even then thought far more than he said. Another difference-in reference to learning is still more incidental and unessential.

The very fundamental idea of Spencer's book shows how incapable he was of expounding the sacred writings-how these under his hands lose all their spirit and have nothing left but the dead letter. This idea-in the main correct, though by him

*The view given of these men here must of course be partial. Their merits in other respects have nothing to do with our present object; and if not mentioned, are not at all intended to be denied.

John Spencer, D. D. born 1630, died 1693, Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and Dean of Ely. His work noticed in the text, is, according to Prof. Tholuck, calculated in the highest degree to prepare the mind for Rationalism.

Author of a "Life of Jesus," in which he makes out the Gospel history to be made up of fables and religious mythi. See infra, pp. 25, 27, 39. This work has been answered by Tholuck in his' Glaubwürdigkeit d. evangelischen Geschichte' (Credibility of the Gospel History), Hamburg, 1837, a book which in many respects deserves to stand by the side of Paley's Horae Paulinae.

tion, condescension), and even remarks that God by instituting these rites made sport of his people. See for instance p. 753, where he says, God commanded the offerings perhaps per ironiam. It was shown by the contemporary opponents Spencer on what a low idea of God his hypothesis is founded. See for example Witsius, in his Aegyptiaca, p. 282. "But whatever appearance of political wisdom these things may have, they are destitute of foundation in the Bible, and are figments of human ingenuity unworthy of the majesty of Deity. But wise and cunning mortals judge of God by themselves, and ascribe to heaven political arts and manoeuvres which are scarcely res pectable on earth. As if, in organizing and establishing his people, he needed the low arts of cunning who holds the hearts of men in his hands and turns them whithersoever he will."* The view given of God is indeed so low, that one might easily conjecture that Spencer himself made his hypothesis only per ironiam, expecting that the real truth would be plain to those of his readers who were ripe for it. There are various hints suggesting this thought. So on p. 20: "God appointed many things in the law covered up with the drapery of types and fig ures, perhaps that the Mosaic law might encourage an imita tion of the spirit and education of Moses."+ Certain proof however is wanting that Spencer was conscious of the necessa ry consequences of his hypothesis-and this is, for our purpose, a matter of indifference. It is enough for us that such were the consequences that every aspect of this view of the ceremonial law led to the denial of the genuineness of the Pentateuch. We give for the sake of example a number of consequences which necessarily follow from this hypothesis. Is the charac ter of the ceremonial law of Moses such as Spencer has descri

* Verum enimvero, quantamcunque haec civilis prudentiae speciem habeant, praeter dei verbum cuncta dicuntur, et humani commenta sunt ingenii, divini numinis haud satis digna. Nimirum cauti catique in seculo mortales deum ex sua metiuntur indole; arcanasque imperandi artes et vaframenta Politicorum, quae vix terra probat, coelo locant. Quasi vero in populo sibi formando firmandoque, is astutiarum ambagibus indigeat is qui mortalium corda in manu habens, ea quorsum vult flectit."-These words J. D. Michaelis might well have taken to heart. (See infra, pp. 8, 9.)

+ "Deus multa in lege typorum et figurarum tegumentis involuta tradidit, forsan ut lex Mosaica cum ipso Mosis ingenio et educatione consensum coleret."

bed it ?—then it cannot be from God-then Moses who ascribes it to God cannot have been one sent of God-then he cannot have proved himself such by miracles and prophecies-then the Pentateuch which ascribes so many of these to him cannot have been written by him. Spencer was besides not satisfied with robbing the ceremonial law of its deeper significancy and its divine character-he endeavors also as much as possible to take away the substance of the moral part of the law. Thus he labors to show, p. 28, that the decalogue is not a general summary of moral duty, but was only designed to keep down gross idolatry.

The influence of Spencer's book was very great, as is shown by the repeated reprints of it, and the editions in Holland and Germany. Even theologians (as Bossuet, Einl. uebers v. Cramer 227) were imprudent and short-sighted enough to coincide more or less with him. His opposers, some of them very learned men, mistook the right mode of assaulting the new and remarkable position he had taken. Instead of applying all their strength to a fundamental and sober examination of the symbolic and typical signification of the Mosaic ritual and thus showing the miracle of the law itself, they employed themselves in the fruitless labor of proving that the external forms of the ritual were not borrowed by the Jews from the heathen, but exactly the reverse.* In the meantime theologians continued to explain the ritual in the old arbitrary way, thus affording Spencer some excuse for his hypothesis.

Spencer was followed by Clericus,† who adopted the hypotheses of his predecessor without any modification or improvement. Nothing more is necessary for a perfect characterizing of the man in this respect than his remark on circumcision: See his Comm. Gen. 17: 10. "It appears to many incredible that a rite of this kind, inconvenient in itself, and when performed on older persons scarcely decent, and which besides can contribute nothing to good morals, was originally instituted

See es

The view here so unceremoniously rejected by Hengstenberg is maintained by the greatest names among orthodox divines. pecially Wilsius in his Egyptiaca, and Gale's Court of the Gentiles. Hengstenberg himself makes a remark (infra, p. 39) which would appear to settle the question: "Such an apeing of what is human by that which is divine would be the greatest absurdity imaginable.”—TR. † John Le Clerc, Professor at Amsterdam. Ob. 1736.

by the great and good God. They suspect therefore 1 Abraham who had seen it practised by the Egyptians, thou it an excellent custom; and that God, who accommodates self to our weakness with the greatest condescension, whet observed this, commanded Abraham to do that himself wi he had approved in others." The shallowness of relig views and principles, which is indeed a peculiarity of the Ar ians, appears in him in its highest degree. The ground w he in reality inwardly takes is entirely a deistical one. E thing that goes beyond his own abstract idea of God, that i to a living God, he calls at once 'Anthropopathy,' Anthr morphism.' It is to him a shell without a kernel.' Ren of this kind occur so frequently as to be tiresome. He suspects that his own abstract idea may be itself the gr anthropomorphism. From his imagined lofty religious l he looks down with pity upon the sacred characters an sacred writers of the Bible. That such kind of views they who adopt them have obtained a clear insight into real character and bearings-(in our times Gesenius mig regarded as a Clericus redivivus)-must lead to the de the genuineness of such books as the Pentateuch, sc needs proof. Books which speak so childishly of God, selves refute the supposition of their inspiration. Miracl prophecies, which really took place if the Pentateuch i uine, could have proceeded only from the living God; at man is anxious lest even the words of the sacred book gross for the deity his reason has formed to itself, how m feel in regard to those deeds which quite break throu pretended brazen walls of nature: That the author also began to be conscious how little a belief in these last with his fundamental religious principles, appears from tempt he has made, in only a few cases however, to expl miracles so as to bring them within the bounds of natural tions. Compare for example his treatise de maris I trajectione (on the passage of the Red Sea), attached

* “Parum credibile multis videtur ritum ejusmodi incom et quando a grandioribus suscipiebatur, parum honestum, qui neque ad bonos mores quidquam conferre potest, a deo opt. n mum institutum. Suspicantur Abrahamum, qui hoc viderat fieri—in illorum sententiam ivisse; quod cum animadverter qui summa ovyzatúßaσa sese nostrae imbecillitati attemper Abrahamum jussit facere, quod jam in aliis probabat."