6. But does the authority of our Lord bind us to repudiate, in loyalty to Him, the modern views of the origin of the Old Testament books? On this subject I wish to express my sincere regret that I should have written so briefly in my essay as to lay myself open to be misunderstood to suggest our Lord's fallibility as a teacher. I trust that the passage, as it has stood since the fourth edition[43], will be at least recognised as plain in its meaning and theologically innocent. I must ask leave to defer to another occasion the fuller discussion of this important subject in connection with the doctrine of the Person of Christ. Meanwhile I would suggest that the longer one thinks of it the more apparent it will become that _any hypothesis as to the origin of any one book of the Old Testament, which is consistent with a belief in its inspiration, must be consistent also with our Lord having given it His authorisation_. If His Spirit could inspire it, He, in that Spirit, could give it His recognition--His recognition, that is to say, in regard to its spiritual function and character. Thus as we scan carefully our Lord's use of the Old Testament books, we are surely struck with the fact that nothing[44] in His use of them depends on questions of authorship or date; He appeals to them in that spiritual aspect which abides through all changes of literary theory--their testimony to the Christ: 'Search the Scriptures ... they are they which testify of Me.' He would thus lead men to ask about each book of the Old Testament simply the question,--What is the element of teaching preparatory to the Incarnation, what is the testimony to Christ, which it supplies? I do not see how with due regard to the self-limitation which all use of human forms of thought and speech must on all showing have involved to the Eternal Son, it can be a difficulty in the way of accepting the modern hypothesis, that our Lord referred to the inspired books under the only name by which His reference would have been intelligible to His hearers. Unless He had violated the whole principle of the Incarnation, by anticipating the slow development of natural knowledge, He must have spoken of the Deuteronomist as 'Moses[45],' as naturally as He spoke of the sun 'rising.' Nor does there seem in fact any greater difficulty in His speaking of one who wrote 'in the spirit and power' of Moses as Moses, than in His speaking of one who, according to the prophecy, came 'in the spirit and power of Elias' as himself, Elias. 'If ye will receive it, this is Elias.' 'Elias is already come[46].'