The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism | Page 3

is well to face the issue calmly, and with a clear
understanding of what is pending. Did Christ know truth? Was he
honest? Hence, the attitude of the Church should be taken in view of
the trend of modern critical discussion.

II. SHOULD REPLY BE MADE?
_"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Psa. xi.
3._
_"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." 1 Thess. v. 21._
_"Buy the truth and sell it not." Prov. xxiii. 23._
_"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common
salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that
you should earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto
the saints." Jude 3._
_"Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have
been taught, whether by word or our epistle." 2 Thess. ii. 15._
_"I am set for the defense of the gospel." Paul, Phil. i. 17._
It is a question among earnest Christian men, who are busily engaged
in the work of the Master, as to whether we should turn aside long
enough to make reply to the destructive critics. It is affirmed that, as
the Word of God has already passed through all the attacks that have
been made upon it, it will defend itself in the future as in the past--that
our duty is to preach the gospel. Certainly the victories of the gospel
are a noble defense of its truth and power to save. There should be no
respite from this work. But there are vast multitudes of people that
permit the critics to do their thinking for them. They are not well
informed concerning the Scriptures, and consequently are not prepared
to repel the attacks of skepticism, nor to reply to the specious
arguments or positive assumptions of the critics. These multitudes are
in danger of casting aside the Word of God, and missing the offer of
eternal life.
The fact of the increased activity of the enemies of the truth must be
known to Christian people. Their organized and persistent use of the
press has gained for them a wide hearing. Shall the Christian people

deny themselves this instrumentality of getting a hearing for God and
his truth before the world? Would not silence be construed by the world
as meaning that the cause dear to the heart of God's people is
indefensible?
It should be known to all lovers of the truth that the skepticism widely
sown by the destructive critics has entered the Protestant Church and
many of our institutions of learning.
"Read the utterances of representative men and teachers in her
communion, who deny the Incarnation, repudiate vicarious sacrifice,
make light of the story of the resurrection, and refine the risen Son of
God into nothing more than the spirit and essence of truth; or, at most,
the disembodied ghost of a man who called himself a Messiah,
mistaken in his claims, but authoritative in his morals." (Rev. I.M.
Holdeman.)
The author of this statement refers also to the fact that there are
"modern professors of theology who convict the very prophets whom
they hold up as exemplars of righteousness, of absolute literary fraud,
and deliberate piracy." They "demonstrate with cool precision that the
higher critics of to-day are better informed concerning the mistakes of
Moses than was he who claimed that Moses wrote of him, and prove to
their own satisfaction and the belief of many followers that Jesus Christ,
our Lord, was limited in intelligence, and would, if he were here to-day,
deny some of the statements he once so unqualifiedly made."
We may not shut our eyes to the fact that many of our colleges are
more or less infected with this rationalistic criticism. Some of our
theological professors have substituted the theory of evolution for the
Scriptural doctrine of creation by the Word of God. Our young men
preparing for the work of the ministry are under the influence and
instruction of some of these teachers here in our own country.
It is a matter for thanksgiving that we have literary and theological
institutions into which the destructive critics have never
entered--institutions that stand for the Word of God as given by the
Holy Spirit, and believed in by God's servants in the past and to-day.
We do well to recognize the further fact concerning the effort to
eliminate the supernatural from the Bible, that the work of the
rationalists has permeated the literature of the day. In this age of
reading fiction, that form of literature has become a convenient vehicle

for taking everything out of the hands of Providence. It has become
easy to leave God out of his universe and supplant him with the heroic
in man. Hence, the literary appetite,