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Still the Christian has emphatically a dispen- sation of the spirit* rather than of the letter; and my com- parison of the Jewish doctrine with the Christian must have shewn how much I mean by these words. Not only is Christ- ianity Truth, but Truth is Christianity; which some may not enough remember; and while we love the truth as a thing of Grod, no discovery of what is true can hurt us. Hence it stands in the essence of a Christian's faith, that he should be less moved by human accidents in the historical records or written expressions of his religion, than Hindds should be, who claim an immutable infallibility for the entire system of their S^stras. Again, so far as we appeal to any books as authorities in our reli- gion, we do so chiefly to those comprehended in our Bible. What these books say of themselves i^ to be believed by us, rather than what others say of them. But there is no better evidence for their age or meaning than what is written in themselves. In believing, then, as most probable what they thus tell us, we hold also the most religious belief; and that to which our own principles lead us. For although learned commentators or Jewish traditions may have taught differently, yet we never ascribe to them the same authority as to holy Scripture; so that their comments, either of conjecture or tradition, both may and ought to be set aside, whenever they contradict the internal witness of Scripture, either to reason, or to other sound tests. Whatever, then, critics may truly discover out of Scripture to be the age or meaning of certain books, as soon as their discovery is esta- * I CoiinthianB ii. ; 2 Corinthians iii. ESTIMATE OF JEWISH JUDGMENTS. 391 blished, it is the Scriptural doctrine, and as such, our religion accepts it. How can followers of the Scripture be frightened by what it says of itself? Still less can those whose mental allegiance is to the very truth, and whose Master came into the world to bear witness to the truth, shrink back from anything true. The truer anything seems, the more Christ bids us to receive it." "All that may be as you say," replied Saddnanda; "but still it would be agreeable to me to know, how far there is any discrepancy among Christians in such matters, and how far a criticism, like that you have given specimens of, could be borne by your sacred books." " Well," replied Blancombe, " I feel no objection to any fair criticism. But here is Dr Wolflf, whose turn of mind as to our sacred books you may infer from his pre- vious discourses. He will perhaps give you the advantage of whatever difficulties the critics have raised." " I am afraid," began Wolff, " you are laying on me an invidious task. But I believe that many critics would place the contents of the Bible in a different order of time from that which most religious teachers prefer." " Do you mean," here asked Blancombe, " that they would do so upon the internal evidence?" " Yes, I conceive so," answered the other. " Then so far," resumed Blancombe, " as any critical view answers to the internal evidence, it becomes the Scriptural one; and no well-instructed Christian should object to it." "Very well," said Wolff; " but these sort of things are to be considered. It is not to be denied, that before the Christian era began the Hebrew canon was closed ; nor are any of its contents later than the date you have assigned to the latest, or about 150 B. c. But most Christians claim a very much higher antiquity for the Old Testament. When we ask for proofs of it, we find that the Jews had very slender knowledge of such points, and no trust- worthy tradition of theirs, external to the Bible, goes farther back than the Babylonian captivity. It is admitted that many books, such as Haggai, and Zechariah, and Ezra, and Chronicles, 392 GROWTH OF LEVITICAL SYSTEM. are written after the return from Babylon. Now why are we to put the five books of Moses a thousand years earlier, or 1500 B. c. instead of 500 ? The reasons for doing so must be found, if anywhere, in the books themselves. Wliereas the fifth book, or Deuteronomy, is according to its Greek name a new edition, or a recast of the Mosaic law; and possibly its date may be much more recent. We read* in the reign of Josiah, 610 B. C, that Hilkiah the priest gave Shaphan a book, which he gave the king; and the whole kingdom seems to have been re-formed on the model of this book. We are told that Hilkiah found this book in the house of the Lord, but there is nothing to shew that he did not write it. Again, the age of Solomon, when the temple was built, was evidently one in which the Levitical priesthood was developing itself, and may have given birth to such books. Half a century earlier the in- fluence of Samuel was in the ascendant, and perhaps a contest, such as you have noticed signs of elsewhere, may be traced in the reluctance of the prophet to consecrate a king, and in his subsequent quarrels with the chosen Saul. There are many points of resemblance, as seems even admitted, between the Brahmanical caste, and the Levitical tribe. The Magians among the Medes and the Chaldaeans at Babylon might furnish a similar parallel. If any such officers were authors or guardians of the literature, they might edit it in the long period between Samuel and Ezra according to their own views. Yet they might act, not only as a priesthood, but as part of the nation whose tra- ditions they shared; and hence popular as well as sacerdotal elements would find an expression, as we have found to be the case in India. But we must not point to Viswdmitra and Sunahsephas, without remembering that Solomon f sacrificed, though a king, and that Abraham was tempted to slay his son. The Levitical system therefore must have grown, no less than the Brahmanical, and admitted equally of improvement in worship • 2 Kings xjiu. lo, II; 2 Chronicles xxxiv. 14, 15, 18, 19. + I Kings viii. 6 — 65. GROWTH OF THE BIBLE BY STEPS. 393 from a clearing of its faith by humanity. Why shonld not Deuteronomy express the fuller form of the Levitical system? Certainly its style has a more redundant flow than the earlier books. Again, the book of Numbers tells us in chapter xxi, that it contains quotations from earlier records, such as the ' book of the wars of the Lord.' Such a record could not be older than Moses, and if it were contemporary, would hardly have been quoted by him ; so that the book quoting it must be of a later age. But often in the Pentateuch, and especially in Grenesis, there are citations from older documents, especially genealogical tables ; and this accounts for the same things being mentioned in one set of narratives with the name Jehovah, and in another with that of Elohim. I am very far from saying that such com- pilation from authorities implies even a shade of ill faith ; but it points to more than one author, and more ages than one. But if the Pentateuch has portions later than Mosjes, still more evi* dently has the book you call after Joshua signs of a later date. For it mentions the name of Jerusalem, which was not borne by the city of Jebus until king David had captured it, and even expressly the partial occupation of the same city by the tribe of Judah, which was subsequent at least to Joshua's death. It mentions even the mountains of Israel and of Judah, and thereby implies knowledge of the political division not known before Saul's time. It quotes again the book of Jashar^ or of sacred songs, which no contemporary would quote as evidence for what he had seen, and which may not have existed so early, certainly was not completed until the death of Saul. But the whole narrative is without disguise the work of a date later than the events ; for the author speaks of posterity, and of certain things continuing ' to this day,' tliat is, to a later date. But if the book of Joshua was compiled not earlier than the time of Samuel^ other historical books may require to be similarly brought down. " Consider now the remarkable case of the Psalms, which arc called after David. Some of them may have preceded the building of the temple ; as for instance those which lay especial 394 THE PSALMS. DANIEL. ZECHARL4H. Stress upon the ark of the tabernacle. But others refer to many disasters or deliverances of most different ages, such as the siege of Sennacherib, the exile in Babylon, and, if the best critics are not mistaken, even the desolation of the holy places under Antiochus Epiphanes.