lower to higher. That this resemblance is a fact no one disputes. There is no controversy over the fact. But when the rationalist attempts to explain this fact, he interprets it to mean that man is the product of evolution, rather than a special creation, as the Bible says he is, and thus he thrusts such confusion and contradiction before us that we are compelled to make a choice between his interpretation and the statements of the Bible. The controversy that results is caused altogether by the rationalist thrusting himself into that place that belongs to the Holy Spirit alone. "He shall lead you into all the truth," said Christ, and it is presumptuous in the extreme to seek to do the Holy Spirit's work for Him.
We are forewarned of the methods of the modern rationalist in his approach to the Bible by what Christ said to the Jews who were finding fault with what He taught:
- "For had ye believed Moses," He said, "ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe My words?"
This is precisely the pathway modern rationalism has followed. It began by discrediting what Moses wrote, and it has now gone to the length of denying final authority to what Christ said.
Rationalism is both irreverent and destructive when it seeks to do anything with the Word of God. For that Book is to be handled as no other book is. Behind the historical, and the literary, and the textual, and the philosophical criticism must be a spiritual discernment, born of faith alone, which both dominates
