them treated as guests, and sent back safely to their
king.

[Footnote 1: Kings 6: 14-20.]

Having cited these three cases, no one of which can fairly be made to
apply to the argument he is pursuing, Dr. Hodge complacently remarks:
"Examples of this kind of deception are numerous in the Old Testament.
Some of them are simply recorded facts, without anything to indicate
how they were regarded in the sight of God; but others, as in the
cases above cited, received either directly or by implication the
divine sanction."

But Dr. Hodge goes even farther than this. He ventures to suggest that
Jesus Christ deceived his disciples by intimating what was not true
as to his purpose, in more than one instance. "Of our blessed
Lord himself it is said in Luke 24:28, 'He made as though [Greek:
prosepoieito]--he made a show of: he would have gone further.' He so
acted as to make the impression on the two disciples that it was
his purpose to continue his journey. (Comp. Mark 6: 48.)"[1] This
suggestion of Dr. Hodge's would have been rebuked by even Richard
Rothe, and would have shocked August Dorner. Would Dr. Hodge deny that
Jesus _could_ have had it in his mind to "go further," or to have
"passed by" his disciples, if they would not ask him to stop? And if
this were a possibility, is it fair to intimate that a purpose of
deception was in his mind, when there is nothing in the text that
makes that a necessary conclusion? Dr. Hodge, indeed, adds the
suggestion that "many theologians do not admit that the fact recorded
in Luke 24:28 [which he cites as an illustration of justifiable
deception by our Lord] involved any intentional deception;" but this
fact does not deter him from putting it forward in this light.

[Footnote 1: When Jesus came walking on the sea, toward his disciples
in their tempest-tossed boat, "he would have passed them by;" but
their cry of fear drew him toward them.]

In the discussion of the application to emergencies, in practical
life, of the eternal principle which he points out at the beginning,
Dr. Hodge is as far from consistency as in his treatment of Bible
narratives. "It is generally admitted," he says, "that in criminal
falsehoods there must be not only the enunciation or signification of
what is false, and an intention to deceive, but also a violation of
some obligation." What obligation can be stronger than the obligation
to be true to God and true to one's self? If, as Dr. Hodge declares,
"a man w