les the last, in asking what
the scripture writers meant in their own time, and what their meaning is
to us; but it seeks the answer, by using the same methods for the
investigation which would be applied in ordinary literature; not by
abstract speculation, apart from literary study of actual documents. It
makes the conceptions which civilization and history have created, to be
the test for comparison, not the eternal truths of reason which are
supposed to exist irrespective of civilization and history.

We may select one illustration. In surveying the doctrine of the atoning
work of Christ, the former school seeks to apprehend the absolute meaning
of the atonement as the manifestation of an act previously wrought out;
and, starting with the notion of the divine teacher of humanity, the {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}
of God in Christ teaching the world, and the {~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER LAMDA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER GAMMA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} in the soul of man
apprehending this teaching, it construes the atoning work of Christ from
its didactic side, as teaching man concerning God's love by means of a
majestic example of self-sacrifice. The second school treats the doctrine
historically; and, when it has separated the apostolic teaching from all
subsequent additions, compares this doctrine with the age in which it was
expressed, in order to separate what it conceives to be the permanent from
the temporary; and hence comes to view the atonement, apart from all the
hallowed associations of propitiatory sacrifice which in the minds of the
early converts were inseparably united with it. These ideas, which the
doctrine of the church regards as integral portions of revealed verity, it
considers to be the peculiarity of the age in which the revelation was
communicated. The revealed doctrines are handled in the same manner as
corresponding doctrines of philosophy.

The minuteness of this method, its disposition to seek for truth in the
investigation of details rather than by approaching a subject from some
general principle, connects it with the other form of the critical
tendency above named, which employs itself in the literary criticism of
the sacred records. The main object of this movement consists in examining
the qu