Moses right, and Bishop Colenso wrong;

Front matter

f-LlCRARY OF CONGRESS.?!

MOSES RIGHT,

BISHOP COLENSO WRONG;

CHAPTER I. WHITHER THE BISHOP's BARK CARRIES HIM

I STATED incidentally in some recent remarks that I would endeavor to direct attention to the demerits of a book far more popular than it deserves to be from its intrinsic character, and far more extensively read than a Christian mind could desire, especially by those borderers between truth and error who are incompetent to dispose of its fallacies. I allude to the work upon the " Pentateuch," by Bishop Colenso. Suppose that work had been written by a presbyter of the Scottish Church, I should equally have animadverted* on it. It is not because the author is a bishop that I take any pleasure in noticing it ; nor is it with words of invective, or in ill-will, or sectarian exclusiveness that I criticise it. It is because the work is doing considerable mischief, as written by a bishop — not, however, among Christians, for this is improbable ; but, as I have said, in that class of the community whicli is still hovering between the truths of the Gospel and the fillacies, plausible fallacies, that profess to disprove or undermine thera. On the minds of these, the specious objections, earnestly urged by Bishop Colenso, must have some effect. Now, it is the duty of every faithful minister of Christ not only to feed the flock, which I hum bly try to do, but also to beat off the wolf, which 1 will try to do also. I therefore address myself to the discussion of a theme on which I am persuaded, on the most irrefragable grounds, that the Bishop is wofully deceived ; while from all he urges I gather the conviction, that no stone or Aveapon can be thrown against the foundation of God's inspired Word which can ever injure it.

If the Bishop merely differed from me on some denominational or ecclesiastical questions, I would never think of answering him ; or if it were a question that related to the Church of England alone, I would leave it for the good bishops and the faithful ministers that officiate by its altars, to dispose of it. But what he impugns is the heritage and glory of the Church universal. If this Bishop be right, our preaching is vain ; our teaching is unnecessary ; you have followed cunningly-devised fables, and I have taught — for many years — not the words of soberness and truth, but of error, absurdity, and delusion.

In this lecture I will not enter upon the varied minute and specific arithmetical objections which he adduces ; these I will reserve to other chapters. I will show in this, and I think with irresistible logical force,

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that if the Bishop's objections be true — if they can be sustained by fair and proper evidence, such as a jury of Englishmen could listen to — there is not a book in the Bible that is reliable ; there is scarcely' a writer in the Bible Avho is not either a fool or a false witness ; and there is barely a fragment left of the inspired records that is wortli being treasured up in the hearts, the consciences, and the intellects of Christendom, as a communication from God.

Let me present, first of all, the conclusion at which he has arrived. I will read his own words, from the preface to his book, at page 17. The title of the book — which I do not wish you to read, unless you have the antidote along with the bane — is, " The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined, by the Right Rev. John William Colenso, D.D., Bishop of Natal." He records, in page 17, what his conclusion is: — "I became so convinced of the unhistorical character of very considerable portions of the Mosaic narrative, that I decided not to forward my letter at all ;" but, after reconsidering the whole subject, he states the chief result of his examination : — " But the main result of my examination of the Pentateuch," that is, the Book of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy — Pentateuch meaning five works, and being the name commonly applied to the Mosaic records — " The main result of my examination of the Pentateuch, — viz., that the narrative, whatever may be its value and meaning, can not be regarded as historically true — is not, unless I greatly deceive myself, a doubtful matter of speculation at all ; it is a simple question of facts." And after he has so said, he adds a foot-note, in which he thus exjDlains himself: — "I use the expression ' unhistorical,' or ' not historically true,' throughout, rather than ' fictitious,' since the word ' fiction ' is frequently understood to imply a conscious dishonesty on the part of the writer, or an intention to deceiA'C." I wish to give him all credit for this. He does not mean that Moses was a dishonest and untruthful man, who wrote a book pm-posely to deceive and to mislead ; Moses was not nearly so bad as that ; but he was so ignorant — if it was Moses that wrote the Pentateuch — and so incompetent a witness, and so unreliable an annalist — if, after all, he was a living person and not a myth — that what he has written is of no more historical value, as a record of facts, than one of Walter Scott's novels, or any clever and plausible book of fiction. I have stated, without the least exaggeration, what seems to me substantially the conclusion of Bishop Colenso.

" If we compare," he says, " one passage with another, we shall find them to contain a series of manifest contradictions and inconsistencies, which leave us, it would seem, no alternative but to conclude that main portions of the story of the Exodus, though based probably upon some real historical foimdation, yet are certainly not to be regarded as historically true ; that, as a whole, it could never in its present form have been written by Moses, or by any one who had actually taken

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part in the scenes which it professes to describe." He thus concludes that the statements of the Pentateuch are not historically true. But what does this imply ? If I were to tell you that "Alison's History of Europe" is not historically true, and if I proved my charge, what would Alison's work be ? A myth, a beautiful romance, and nothing more. If I were to prove to you that " Hume's History of England " is not historically true, it would mean that it is a mere creation of the fancy of Hume, and not a literal history of facts. Either the work is historically true, or it is a romance poetically beautiful, but not a record and authentic statement of events. In fact he says, these books which profess to be histories, and to record facts, do not state facts ; that the writer, whoever he was, knew nothing about them ; that in all probability Moses could not be the writer, for he says he writes a chapter at the end of Deuteronomy giving an account of his own death ; and that therefore some bigoted annalist, some romancist among the Jews, some Waltei Scott in Israel, must have written these records out of his own heated brain, or from old traditions ; and that the history of Creation, the Fall, Redemption, the Flood, Abraham, IsToah, all is false, or historically untrue ; a splendid romance, but not matter-of-fact.

Now then, having seen these conclusions, I wish to add what the Bishop himself says is the result of all. " What the end may be God only knows ; the God of truth only can foresee. Meanwhile, and believing and trusting in his guidance, I have committed my bark to the flood, and am carried along by its waters." Now, I have no doubt the Bishop is perfectly sincere. I think he is indiscreet and rash, but not insincere. He is indeed singularly rash and hasty. Instead of giving conclusions which he says he reached only about eighteen months ago, he ought to have taken the classic advice which he will find in a Latin poet well known to him, no doubt, and have carefully and seriously pondered and weighed them for nine years ; and after having done so, as became so grave a subject, he might have published the result of his discovery ; but having published it, I give him credit for his statement, that he feels deep pain, because he believes he has thus lifted the anchors of Christendom, and left all afloat upon waters carrying them they not whither, — without a chart, without a compass, and, I fear we must add, without a hope.

All I will attempt in this lecture will be to show you that if Bishop Colenso's position be true, namely, that Moses was not the writer of the Pentateuch, and that what is written in the Pentateuch is not actual, literal, hon^ fide historical fact, most of the Old Testament, and nearly all the ISTew Testament, must therefore be equally untrue. I will show that the Bishop, in his own words, having committed his bark to the flood, is carried along upon waters which are wafting him to shores that he never anticipated. He says the Pentateuch is historically false ; Moses is probably not the

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writer. But what logically follows ? First of all, that David, the sweet singer of Israel, was totally misinformed, and has stated what is not true ; for David says (Psalm ciii. 7) , " God made known his ways unto Moses:" — (Psalm evi. 16), "They envied Moses also in the camp:" — (Psalni cvi. 23), "Moses stood before him in the breach." What would an ordinary reader infer from these words ? — that David regarded Moses as a living person, and that he regarded as facts, historic facts, what he quotes and attributes to Moses. But if Bishop Colenso be correct, David — instead of being an inspired penman — was a misinformed rhapsodist ; either he was deceived, or he deceives. The Bishop also sweeps away Isaiah ; for what does this prophet say ? — (Isaiah Ixiii. 12), " God led them by the right hand of Moses." He states the fact recorded in Exodus, and repeats it in his own pages, therefore Isaiah was deceived or a deceiver. Jeremiah ( xv. 1), who writes, " Though Moses and Samuel stood before me ;" regarding these two as great prophets, also was misinformed. Malachi (iv. 4) says, " Remember ye the law of Moses my servant," — he also was misled. And Peter was totally deceived at Pentecost ; for what does he say ? (Acts iii. 22) " Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me ; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you." Where did Peter get these words ? From the Pentateuch. But evidently Peter was mistaken and deluded, and identified a human fiction with a Divine fact, and IDrobably, therefore, was as much a myth as the writer of the Pentateuch.

And not only so, but the proto-martyr Stephen was also utterly deceived on the eve of martyrdom. He said, " Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken. The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran, and said unto him, Get thee out of thy country, and come into the land which I shall show thee." But Abraham is one of the myths of Moses, a fanciful personage, the mere meteor of a troubled fancy. Yet Stephen, the proto-martyr, who spake by the Spirit of God, supposed Abraham to be a living man, and not a mythic person. He proceeds, in this chapter (vii.) of the Acts of the Apostles, " The patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt ;" that looks like his viewing it as a historic fact. " And when Jacob heard that there was corn in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first ;" that also seems historic fact. And then he says again, " So Jacob went down into Egypt, and died, he, and our fathers." And then, in verse 22, " And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. And when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian ;" that is stated as historic fact. In this chapter, you will find the leading facts of the Pentateuch in brief. Then, what fol-

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loA\^s ? If Moses was not a real person, or if Moses was not the writer of the Pentateuch, or if the Pentateucli be not historically true, Stephen, the great proto-martyr, speaking by the Spirit of God, on the eve of his martyrdom and death, was so deceived and mistaken, that he quoted as facts, airy fables, and alluded to persons Avho, as Bishop Colenso knows better than Stephen, never had an historic existence at all.

I go farther still ; for it will be seen that the Bishop's logic sweeps away every thing that we trust in. I turn to the Apostle Paul. If Moses was not an actual person, if he was not the writer of the Pentateuch, if the Pentateuch be not historically true, what mean the words of Paul in Acts xxvi. 22 ? "I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come." And 1 Cor. x. 2, " They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." And in 2 Cor. iii. 7, " The children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses." And what is still more striking, that roll call, as it has been named, of the illustrious dead — the cloud of witnesses — contained in the eleventh chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, shows while I read it how thoroughly the Apostle Paul was deceived if Bishop Colenso be specially taught. He says in the fourth verse, '' By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." What a pity that Paul Avas not as enlightened as Colenso ! He never would then have alluded to two myths as living, historic persons. Again, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death." This looks like the Apostle Paul believing this to be fact. " By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved Avith fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house ; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." " By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed." And again, " By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac." And again, " By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child ; and they were not afraid of the king's commandment. By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt ; for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king ; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest He that destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land ; which the Egyptians assaying to do, were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days. By faith the harlot Rahab perished not with

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them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. And what shall I say more ? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephtha, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets." Now, what would you infer from this chapter written by the Apostle Paul ? That all he records he believed to be actual, that living and historic persons engaged in the very work ascribed to them in the Pentateuch, and that, instead of being myths, and dreams, and romantic representations of things that never were, they were living actors in the world's great drama, and the acts ascribed to them in the Pentateuch the Apostle Paul accepts and reasserts as having actually and historically occurred.

Jude also must have been deceived, for he says that Satan disputed about the body of Moses ; and St. John in the Apocalypse plainly must have been misled, for he says the redeemed in heaven sing the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb.

See now what a sweeping issue the Bishop has raised. If Moses was not an actual person, if the Pentateuch be not historically true, then St. Peter was deceived, Stephen was deceived, St. Paul was deceived, Jude and St. John were deceived, then Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the sweet singer of Israel were all deceived ; for all these writers distinctly assert the personal existence of Moses, and the great facts of his narrative, as being matters of history ; and that he predicted the Messiah, and that the Messiali corresponds to the prediction of

Moses, who had written of Him as inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. Then all these writers either must have been deceived, or they must have written to deceive us. These are the horns of the dilemma ; on one or the other the Bishop must rest. If they didn't mean to deceive us (and he gives them credit for honesty), they were utterly deceived themselves; but whether the one or the other, the issue raised by the Bishop is, that his bark, launched upon the floods, lands upon shores dreary and desolate as the Arctic regions around the pole, on v/hich no living thing can grow, and no heart can beat, and no lungs can breathe.

But I go farther than this. I must state also the most awful, but inevitable conclusion to which he impels us. He that spake as never man spake, the Lord of glory, the Prophet and the Teacher of His Church — I speak with the profoundest reverence — if the Bishop be right, was deceived, or has deceived us. If Bishop Colenso's conclusion be correct, I do not see how it is possible to escape this. For what does He say ? "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up." What does that teach ? That the Saviour regarded the lifting up of the serpent by Moses as an actual historical fact. What does He say again in John v. 41 ? " Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me, for he wrote of me." But what does that prove ? That the writings of Moses were part of the rule of faith ; that the Jews ought to have believed that rule of faith ; that Moses was so in-

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sj^ired that he delineated with infallible precision the approaching Deliverer, although an interval of a thousand years and upwards intervened between the time that Moses wrote and the era in which the Saviour came. Then he says again, in Luke xx. 37, "ISTow that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush." The Saviour also says, Luke xvi. 29, "They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the. dead." But what does this involve ? First, the Saviour teaches that Moses was a person; secondly, that Moses wrote what bore his name amidst the Jewish people ; thirdly, that what he wrote was sufficient to show to men the way to heaven so clearly, that they would not see it more clearly if one were to rise from the dead. But Bishop Colenso says that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, that the Pentateuch does not contain literal history; therefore it follows, if Bishop Colenso be right, that the Saviour must have been misinformed, or that the Saviour has misled ; and that it was reserved for a Bishop of Natal, in Africa, to illuminate the world in the nineteenth century, and to shed upon all its mysteries, its problems, its fears, and its hopes, a light and truth which He that spake as man never spake did not reach.

But the Bishop himself seems staggered at this conclusion, and therefore in his introduction, page 31, lie endeavors to make an apology ; but, like most apologies, it leaves the matter not only unmended, but worse than it was before ; he says, " It may be said that such words, if understood in this literal sense, can only be supposed to apply to certain parts of the Pentateuch, since most devout Christians will admit that the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which records the death of Moses, could not have been written by his hand." Well, we all admit so much. But then how do we explain it ? Why, every body knows that the division of the Bible into chapters is a very recent thing, and that the division of it into texts or verses is a still more recent thing ; and every body knows that some of the chapters are so badly divided, that if it would not inflict great inconvenience on the Christian Church, it would be much better to re-divide them. You will find, for instance, in Isaiah, broken and interrupted narratives ; an instance is found in the 5 2d and 53d of Isaiah ; we find a chapter sometimes ends with a verse that is incomplete, so that you must look to the next chapter for its conclusion. Now, it is in keeping with this to suppose that the last chapter of Deuteronomy ought to be the first chapter of the book that follows, but has been added to Deuteronomy instead of being prefixed to Joshua ; and that it is so is obvious from the mark of dislocation, to which I must ask you to turn, because it will be an answer to the very foolish objection of the Bishop of Natal. Deuteronomy, chapter 33, contains the following paragraph: "And this is the blessini^ wherewith Moses the man of God bless-

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ed the children of Israel before his death." That blessing is beautifallv expressed in the 33d of Deuteronomy, closing with the sublime woi'ds, " Happy art thou, O Israel ; who is like unto thee, O peoj^le saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency ? and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee ; and thou shalt tread upon their high places." The 34th chapter unquestionably describes the death of Moses. But if you turn to the book of Joshua, which you find by turning over the leaf, you will see there the very passage that falls in with the 34th chapter of Deuteronomy : " Now after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua," implying that the writer of the book of Joshua had previously given an account of the death of his servant Moses. And therefore this 34th chapter of Deuteronomy is really the first chapter of the book of Joshua, and the first must be the second chapter of that book. The misplacement of a chapter should not be made the foundation of so grave a charge.

He says in the next place, " But secondly, and more generally, it may be said that, in making use of such expressions, our Lord did but accommodate His words to the current popular language of the day, as when He speaks, for instance, of God making His sun to rise." He says, " Our Lord did but accommodate His words to the current popular language of the day." Can any one believe that ? If He accommodated His words to the popular language of the day, what does our Lord mean by quoting the prophecy, " A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up like unto me from among your brethren ; Him shall ye hear in all things ? " If that did not refer to our Lord, then it was unjustifiable untruth to say that it did so ; if it did refer to our Lord, then it is irresistible proof that Moses, a person, actually so said, and that what he said is so far inspired record. But the popular belief of the day, instead of favoring what the Saviour taught, ran cross to it ; and to have accommodated His language to the popular notions of the day would have been to have spoken just the reverse of what He actually spoke ; for the whole belief of the day was against what He claimed to be, and hostile to what He taught ; and because He so taught they crucified Him ; and because He would not accommodate His words, and the words of Moses, to the popular language of the day, but speak forth the words of everlasting truth, they shouted with a national voice, " Not this man, but Barabbas," and they crucified Him between two thieves.

But Bishop Colenso goes farther. He says, "It is not to be supposed that Jesus in His human nature was acquainted, more than any educated Jew of the age, with all the mysteries of all modern science ; nor, with St. Luke's expressions before us, can it be seriously maintained that, as an infant, or young child, He possessed a knowledge surpassing that of most of the pious and learned adults of the Hebrew nation upon the sub-

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ject of the authorship and nature of the different parts of the Pentateuch." Now, let us see what this language implies. He says that Jesus increased in wisdom as He grew in stature ; this is unquestionably true. But the question before us is not what Jesus knew as an infant, or whether He was more enlightened as a child than Hebrew adults, but what He was when He stood forth in the midst of the world, the great Teacher, the only Priest, the supreme King of His Church. If He knew no more at thirty years of age, when He assumed the great functions of the infallible and universal Teacher, than the HebrcAV adults, His coteraporaries, what have we left us to rely upon? What He taught as the resurrection of the dead, if the Bishop be right, may be a myth ; what He taught as pardon of sins through His precious blood, may be a mistake; when He taught the immortality of the soul and the hopes of glory, he may have taught delusions. The Bishop must sink into Socinianism, but he can not sto]) even there ; his bark, that is afloat upon the floods, must carry him to shores more desert, and more distant still. If Jesus was not the perfect Teacher of perfect truth when He taught in the synagogue and on the streets of Jerusalem, He was not the perfect Priest, nor the perfect Sacrifice, nor the perfect Atonement. The anchors of our faith are lifted; Christendom is afloat upon a stormy, dreary, and tempestuous sea; and either the Bishop is ignorant, rash, and reckless, or the Saviour was deceived, or has deceived us. That is the issue he himself lias raised, and there is no other conclusion to which it is possible for us to come.

Such, then, is the necessary result of the teaching of Bishop Colenso. He himself seems to have anticipated it, for he admits the possibility of people regarding all in this light. If Bishop Colenso's position be right, that the Pentateuch is not true, that Moses did not write it, or that whoever did write it knew nothing of the facts of the case, and took no part in the incidents recorded in it ; then I say Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, David, John, Peter, Stephen, St. Paul, and last and not least, the Lord of glory, were deceived and deluded also.

The Bishop adds, at page 152, when he is looking back at the shores to w^hich his bark has carried him, "The results of scientific criticism" — I call them in this instance the results of episcopal delusion and folly — " the results of scientific criticism applied to the examination of the letter of the Scriptures will also soon be acknowledged as facts " — I believe that every sane man will acknowledge these words to be whims — " which must be laid as the basis of all sound religious teaching." Further he adds, " In view of this change, which I believe is near at hand, and in order to avert the shock which our children's faith must otherwise experience when they find, as they certainly will before long, that the Bible can no longer be regarded as infallibly true in matters of common history." He anticipates the shock that will be felt by our children when