The value of any evidence depends largely on the character of the witnesses. A witness of well-known uprightness, by his bearing and whole deportment, will give weight to the evidence, but put a man of disreputable character into the witness box, and who will attach weight to his testimony?
We propose to put Modernism to the test. One thing is certain, Modernism, despite its name, is not modern. It is as ancient as most errors. How true are the words of Holy Writ: " Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us " (Ecc. 1:10).
For instance, the disbelief in miracles was put forth be Celsus as far back as the second century, followed by Porphyry in the third, whilst the ancient Ebionites believed in a purely human Christ. Even in the time of Christ, many believed He was no more than a mere prophet, as the millions of Mohammedans do to this day.
For what is meant by Modernism? It is simply the theology of those who have been influenced by the teaching of the Higher Critics. Of course, they vary in detail, but there is an unanimous agreement among Higher Critics and Modernists in refusing the plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture. For the " God-breathed " character of the Bible are substituted theories, and methods are used which are not applied to any other book in the world, and if they were they would be laughed at as childish and puerile, save that they are as complicated and confusing as the maze at Hampton Court. There is, however, a way out of the maze at Hampton Court, but there is none in connection with Modernism. It is a hopeless blind alley.
It is much harder to believe in the Modernist's Bible than in the "God-breathed" Scriptures of Truth. Said an aged preacher to the consternation of his hearers, "The Bible is a wonderful book, if it be true, but" he quickly added, "it would be ten times more wonderful if it were not true." He might have said a thousand times more wonderful and not have been guilty of exaggeration. Lord Tennyson was fond of saying, "It is difficult to believe, but it is more difficult not to believe."
If God chose to make a revelation to man, surely He would take care that it should be preserved free from human mistakes. It is an utterly ignoble view of God that He should make a revelation of Himself, and then leave it in the hands of fallible men to freely mix it up with their own thoughts, and that every reader should have to decide for himself what are God's thoughts and what are men's, what is divine and what is human, what is truth and what is error. No human author would allow this, yet men dare to think that God would allow the precious message, through which alone men can know the truth and be blessed, to be thus made into a veritable hotch-potch, robbed of its purity and authority.
Well might Bishop Wordsworth write:- " We affirm that the Bible is the WORD of God, and that it is not marred by human infirmities. We do not imagine, with some, that the Bible is like a threshing floor on which wheat and chaff lie mingled together, and that it is left to the reader to winnow and sift the wheat from the chaff by the fan and sieve of his own mind."
We may well inquire as to the origin of Modernism. Is the fountain of its origin clean or unclean? Does it come from Bible lovers or Bible haters? Was there a predilection in favor of the Scriptures, or a bias against them on the part of the men, who set the ball of Modernism rolling?
In a small pamphlet we can only give a few details, and pick out the most prominent of the originators of Modernism.
In 1670, Spinoza, a Dutch author, wrote a book ascribing the authorship of the Pentateuch to Ezra, or to some other late compiler, and denying the Mosaic authorship. It may well be noted that Spinoza was an infidel Jew and not a Christian. We cannot expect a fair handling of the Scriptures from such a man.
In 1753, a French doctor, Jean Astruc, propounded the theory that because Gen. 1 used the word-Elohim -for God, and Gen. 2 used the words-Jehovah Elohim-for God, there must have been two original documents, which had been incorporated into one book. And who was Astruc? A free-thinker and a man of profligate life.
A German professor, Eichhorn of the University of Gottingen, took up Astruc's ideas, and in 178o published a book embodying them. He it was who coined the term Higher Criticism, which has been defined as:- " The discovery and verification of the facts regarding the origin, form, and value of literary productions upon the basis of their internal characters."
A few years later (1806) De Wette, a German professor of philosophy and theology at Heidelberg, continued on Eichhorn's lines. Others kept up the task of criticism on these lines till Julius Wellhausen began to publish still more advanced views in 1878. He believed that he had discovered twenty-two different author's for the books of Moses—all unknown.
Dr. L. W. Munhall of Philadelphia quotes the following testimony:- " You cannot have Christ and the critics both; you must choose whom you will follow. I have known personally almost all the great scholars in the past thirty years in Germany, who are Higher Critics, and not one of them believed in the Deity of our Lord." THE DRIFT OF THE TIMES, p. 7.
We have only noticed very briefly four or five of the most prominent originators of Modernism, and most certainly the source of the stream of Biblical criticism is tainted. A rationalistic Jew, a profligate Frenchman, a set of critics to a man disbelieving in the deity of our Lord, are certainly not calculated to inspire us with confidence as to their teaching.
That some Modernists recognize what is the end of the road they travel is exemplified by the following. The late Professor W. H. Griffith Thomas, D.D., wrote:- " More than twenty years ago the present writer, walking with Julius Wellhausen in the quaint streets of Greifswald, ventured to ask him whether, if his views were accepted, the Bible could retain its place in the estimation of the common people; ' I cannot see how that is possible,' was the sad reply." BACK TO THE BIBLE.
It is reported that when Wellhausen was informed that his British followers believed in the inspiration of the Pentateuch, he replied in amazement:-
" I knew the Old Testament was a fraud; but I never dreamed of making God a party to the fraud, as these Scotch fellows do."
Whether the story is true or not, the remark is simply logical.