List of Contributors to Volume IX. REV. PROFESSOR W. EMERY BARNES, D.D. REV. T. BARNS, M.A. REV. PROFESSOR W. H. BENNETT, D.D., D.LIT. REV. ARTHUR CARR, M.A. DOM CHAPMAN, O.S.B. REV. PROFESSOR T. K. CHEYNE, D.D. REV. PROFESSOR SAMUEL IVES CURTISS. REV. PROFESSOR W. L. DAVIDSON, LL.D. E. E. KELLETT, M.A. REV. J. B. MAYOR, M.A., D.LIT. REV. GEORGE MILLIGAN, M.A., D.D. REV. PROFESSOR J. H. MOULTON, M.A., D.LIT. REV. PROFESSOR A. S. PEAKE, M.A. PROFESSOR W. M. RAMSAY, D.C.L., LL.D. PROFESSOR ALEX. SOUTER, M.A. REV. CANON TODD, M.A., B.Sc. REV. T. A. WEIR, M.R.A.S. REV. NEWPORT J. D. WHITE, M.A. THE EXPOSITOR. EDITED BY THE REV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A., LL.D. SIXTH SERIES Volume IX London: HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. MCMIV. AN APPEAL FOR A HIGHER EXEGESIS.1 "Open Thou mine eyes, that may behold wondrous things out of Thy law."-Ps. cxix. 18. NOT many years ago an Oxford teacher "to memory dear" expressed the hope that the age of Biblical criticism was nearly past. He must have meant that the literary or philological study of the Bible had almost done its work, and that another guide was needed to lead disciples from the outer court of the temple into the Holy of holies. Need I justify myself as to some extent at least a critic for using such a phrase? That were to admit that there was some truth in the current prejudice that keen criticism and a firm hold on the unseen realities cannot be united in the same persons. But do our popular writers really imagine that critics are Nihilists, and seek to "burn up all the houses (meeting-places) of God in the land?" Do not we Biblical critics know as well as any simple-minded Christian that a most holy place exists, and that a certain tone of mind and quality of experience are required in those who would enter it? Need I protest that our critical freedom is not the freedom of scepticism, but of a purified faith-of a faith which, being spiritual and experimental, can afford to be patient while the security of its outworks is being tested? I count it a happy thing that protestations are needless today in an Oxford which is not divided into two camps, and in which differences of opinion do not issue in calumnious 1 Preached as a University sermon in St. Mary's Church, Oxford, October 25, 1903, but with the hope of reaching a wider audience. JANUARY, 1904. I 253722 VOL. IX. |