One of the most common devices of the advocates of error in all ages has been that of counting up the number of persons who adhere to, or have adhered to, a certain theory or system, as proof that it is true. In the days of Ahab there were four hundred prophets claiming to be prophets of Jehovah who said that if he and Jehoshaphat went up to Ramoth-Gilead to battle, the Lord would prosper them, while Micaiah alone said the opposite. Ahab had four hundred to one in favor of his enterprise, yet he went and lost his life, as the one prophet said he would. In the days of Martin Luther, and ever since, one of the popular arguments in favor of Roman Catholicism has been the superior number of its adherents as compared with Protestantism. And now, in the controversy over the conclusions of destructive critics, there is an everlasting ding-dong in our ears about the greater number of real scholars who have accepted the new views of the Bible. Professor Briggs used it for all it was worth in his defense before the presbytery, and since then we see the argument (?) [74] reiterated on every hand. With the aid of seven German, American and British scholars, whom he names as his helpers, Professor Briggs hunted up the names of twenty-five men in America, thirty-two in Great Britain, and ninety-four in Germany, who have accepted, at least in part, the views on the Pentateuch and Isaiah which he himself holds, or then held. I suppose that these were all that could be found, and after all the noise that has been made, the scholarship of the age being all one way on these questions, it is really a surprise that the number is so small. In looking over the list I find one distinguished American whom he has omitted, and one still more distinguished Englishman. Col. Bob Ingersoll is the American, and James Martineau, whom he styles one of the "representative Christians of the present time," is the Englishman. Inasmuch as he mentions all the infidel professors in the German universities, and: also Matthew Arnold, of England, and Professor Toy, of this country, I don't see, either, why he confined himself to infidels who have lived recently; for he might have increased his list very materially by taking in Voltaire, and all, or nearly all, the infidels that have lived since Dr. Astruc first suggested the Pentateuch analysis.

      But what does this long list of names, whether printed by Professor Briggs or copied from him by newspaper writers, prove? Nothing, except that recent infidels, and some men who still claim to be believers in the divinity of Christ, have accepted the criticism which the infidels of former generations busily propagated, with an intermixture of a few new points of objection to established views. But in proving this, it brings into bold relief another fact that these boasters seem to lose sight of the fact that, while these one hundred and fifty [75] enumerated have reached these conclusions, all the rest of the scholars in the world, who have watched their proceedings, and read their numberless essays and books, have seen through their fallacies, and rejected their conclusions. The latter class are a hundred-fold more numerous than the former; so that, if counting noses amounted to anything in the proof of theories, the new theories would be proved false by a large majority. True, the self-styled critics affirm that none of these men of the latter class, except one here and there, is capable of judging, and that the few who are capable are old men who have formed their opinions long ago, and are too conservative to change. By this they comfort themselves. For example, since the publication by Bishop Ellicott of "Christus Comprobator," Professor Cheney has pronounced him a "reactionary theologian." His remark reminds me of the professor who got too close to the heels of a mule, when he received a backset, and after his recovery from the shock, concluded that a mule was a reactionary kind of animal. But let this vast host of scholarly professors and preachers in Europe and America, who have not accepted these conclusions, be set down as low as you please in scholarship, yet it must still be admitted that they are capable of judging what an argument is, and what evidence is. They are competent to serve on a jury. They have not been asleep while the "critics" have been at work. If the "critics" had no readers but one another, none of their books would have paid for paper and presswork. These other scholars have been reading what the "critics" have published; and even if not one in a thousand of them could have written such books, they can understand them after they are written, and they can judge whether they sustain by competent evidence the theories which they [76] pound. They have rendered their verdict, most of them in a quiet way, and the verdict is, not proven.

      As to the point that some of those who made this verdict are old men, who have made up their minds long ago, it may be well to remember that in that long ago the young men who have become "critics" had their minds made up the same way, and the only difference is that the youngsters have changed and their seniors have not. Yet those seniors have seen and heard and weighed and rejected all that has convinced the youngsters. It is not always the case that the young are wiser than the old.

      I may, perhaps, be pardoned for a personal remark or two in this connection. I have seen, for several years back, indications here and there that some who knew me by name have entertained the idea that, while they were keeping up with the times in criticism and some other matters, I and some other fellow-workers have been fast asleep in regard to the world's progress. I suppose that my experience, of which I will tell a little, is the counterpart of that of thousands who stand on these questions where I do. When I was but a boy I read some of the writings of older English infidels. I was just out of college when the once famous work, "Vestiges of Creation," fell into my hands. When Colenso's work on the Pentateuch and Joshua, the work which first introduced German criticism of the Hexateuch to English readers, first made its appearance, I procured it, and made a careful study of it. From these early readings I became familiar with nine-tenths of the points of argument now employed by the masters of criticism in its present form. As time went on I studied Baur, Strauss and Renan; and more recently I have made it my duty to inform myself in the later theories of the new critical school, [77] and I stand where I do to-day, not in the unbelief of ignorance, but in the unbelief of investigation. I make no boast of superior ability to judge of arguments and evidence, but I suppose I have an average capacity in that respect, and that what is true of myself is true of a vastly greater number of living Biblical students than can be arrayed in favor of the conclusions which I have set myself to oppose, because I abhor them as dishonoring to God and injurious to men. If the "critics" insist upon counting noses, the count is against them.

[SEBC 74-78]