ment of the division of 1837 had passed away, the Old School Assembly used the following language: "The terms of Christian communion adopted by our Church have been in accordance with the divine command that we should receive one another as Christ has received us. We have ever admitted to our communion all those who in the judgment of charity were the sincere disciples of Jesus Christ. If in some instances stricter terms have been insisted upon, if candidates for sealing ordinances have been required to sign pledges, to make profession of any thing more than faith, love and obedience to Jesus Christ, these instances have been few and unauthorized, and therefore do not affect the general character of the Church." Should all professing Christians now enrolled in the Methodist, Congregational, Baptist and other evangelical bodies apply for membership in the Presbyterian Church, that Church would be bound in consistency with its own principles to receive them. Should this come to pass, however, the mind of the Church would no doubt favor a broader interpretation of the system of doctrine to which its officers subscribe.

The two points to which this chapter calls attention are these:

1. By its history the Presbyterian Church is taught the lesson of toleration toward supposed new views.

2. By its growth in numbers the Presbyterian Church will be compelled to the same toleration. A continental church will necessarily contain a greater variety of opinion than an insular church.

CHAPTER II.

THE OCCASION.

So far from the twenty years since the reunion being years of theological rest or stagnation, they have been years of remarkable progress. This is especially true of Biblical science. Biblical Archæology, Biblical History, and especially the new science called Biblical Theology, have been almost reconstructed within this period. That the American churches should be untouched by this progress was not to be expected. The late Professor Christlieb, indeed, thought that the Germans had worked out the problems in Biblical science so well that we might take from them the conservative results, and escape the conflict by which they were reached. But it is doubtful whether in the field of knowledge results can be really appropriated without going through the processes by which they were reached. Our exegetes were willing enough to rest for a time in the arguments of Hengstenberg and Keil. But when they felt conscientiously bound to investigate the arguments of other men in the same field, it was seen that not all truth was in the possession of these defenders of the faith. Such men as Tholuck, Dorner, Kahnis, and especially Delitzsch, were known to be earnest evangelical Christians. But they were compelled to make concessions on Biblical questions, and if they why not we? On the positive side it became increasingly evident also that the historical critics and Biblical theologians discovered new and valuable truth. The appropriation of new truth is generally accompanied by the recasting of dogmatic formulas. Fortunately the Presbyterian

Church has a Confession that is peculiarly adapted to assimilate new truth in regard to the Bible. That Confession, as will be shown in the sequel, states no doctrine of inspiration. While affirming that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, it does not conclude that it is therefore inerrant. Emphasizing the sufficiency of Scripture as a source of faith and morals, and its infallibility in this regard, it nowhere extends this infallibility to any thing else than faith and morals.

New views of truth, however, are judged not by the natural meaning of the creeds with which they are supposed to conflict, but by the doctrinal systems which have grown up about those creeds. When it is pointed out that these are not the creeds, they are asserted to be logically contained in the creeds, or to underlie them, or to have been the views of the makers of the creeds. It is not surprising therefore that the advance of Biblical theology created some uneasiness in so conservative a body as the Presbyterian Church. The assembly in 1882, and again in 1883, passed resolutions concerning certain supposed errors on the subject of the Bible and its inspiration. The errors are in one of these utterances said to result from the "introduction and prevalence of German mysticism and higher criticism, and of philosophic speculation and so-called scientific evolution." The sweeping character of these assertions is such as to deprive them of any force. For they mean every thing or nothing, according to the interpretation put upon them. Their immediate occasion, however, is supposed to have been a series of papers in the Presbyterian Review designed to show the present state of inquiry in regard to the Old TestaThe papers represented both the conservative and the critical views the latter, however, in strictly evangelical form. Of German mysticism, philosophic speculation or evolutionary hypotheses they presented not a trace. Their only fault

ment.

was that they vindicated the right of critical methods of study within the limits of the Presbyterian Church.

As all the world knows, the Rev. C. A. Briggs was inaugurated Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, January 20, 1891. His inaugural address was on the subject of the Authority of Holy Scripture. It was regarded by many who heard him as a vindication of that authority, and such it is in reality and in the intention of the author. Two of the opening paragraphs make this plain:

"Human nature is so constituted that, when self-consciousness and reflection rise into activity, there is an irresistible impulse to seek authority for the relations in which we find ourselves, the knowledge that is taught us, and the conduct prescribed for us in life. We may be content as children with the authority of our parents, as young men and maidens with the authority of masters and teachers, but sooner or later, the responsibility is thrown upon ourselves, and we alone must bear the strain of life, incur its obligations, and earn its rewards and penalties for time and for eternity. What authority shall be our guide and comfort in life is a fundamental question for man at all times, but never has it been so urged upon our race as in the closing years of the nineteenth century.

"If we undertake to search the forms of authority that exist about us, they all alike disclose themselves as human and imperfect, and we feel at times as if we were upon an unknown sea, with pilots and officers in whom we have no confidence. The earnest spirit presses back of all these human authorities in quest of an infallible guide, and of an eternal and immutable certainty. Probability might be the guide of life in the superficial eighteenth century, and for those who have inherited its traditions, but the men of the present times are in

quest of certainty. Divine authority is the only authority to which man can yield implicit obedience, on which he can rest in loving certainty, and build with joyous confidence."

Reading these words dispassionately, we must find them to be words of truth and soberness. The cry of the heart for light and leading was never more distinctly heard than it is today. The reason for agnosticism is not self-sufficiency. Men are agnostics not because they are impatient of authority, but because they can not find the authority they would be glad to find.

Dr. Briggs proceeds to discuss the various sources of divine authority. "There are historically three great fountains of divine authority, the Bible, the Church, and the Reason." He contends that each of these has actually revealed God to men. The position is at least intelligible and defensible. As the author nowhere characterizes either Reason or the Church as an infallible rule of faith and practice, he can not be said to contradict the common Protestant doctrine concerning the Scriptures. He says, indeed: "If God really speaks to men in these three centers, there ought to be no contradiction between them. They ought to be complementary, and they should combine in a higher unity for the guidance and comfort of men. It is my profound conviction that we are on the threshold of just such a happy reconciliation." While such a hope is sanguine, perhaps over-sanguine, it can hardly be called unorthodox.

Before discussing the Bible, the highest of these sources of divine authority, the author speaks of the barriers of divine authority in Holy Scripture. By these he means barriers thrown up by men. "The Bible," he says, "is the book of God, the greatest treasure of the Church. Its ministry are messengers to preach the Word of God and to invite men to His presence and government. It is pharisaic to obstruct their way by any fences or stumbling-blocks whatever. It is