The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-08-09 00:00:00

he manner in

already

ias not yet

arance eh

Sir,—Now that Mr. Lowe's well-meant, though rather
tedious, letters on the above subject are concluded, the
time has arrived for a few words by way of rejoinder.
Lovers of truth will, I think, generally be sorry to see in
Mr. Lowe's letters two objectionable things:—

bit. The use in the earlier part of them of the a priori
argument, and the argument from consequences ; all
history is full of the dangerous results following from
a use of these with reference to religion, which relates
to a Being who "hideth himself," and " whose ways
are not as our ways." The first, applied to the exist-
ent of evil in the world, and in the real Christian's
breast, has been used as an argument against the
existence of a God at all ; the second, taking the form,
" if this new thing be true, what will become of us,"
sent Galileo to prison, and countless martyrs to the
stake.

2nd. In the latter part 'of the letters, lovers of truth
will be sorry to see Mr. Lowe, while triumphantly
bringing forward as unanswerable the old rep'ies to
objections, charging Mr. Macnaught with entirely
ignoring these, when, in point of fact," la the very first
pages of his book Mr. Maenaught states, with the most
perfect distinctness, his entire knowledge and recog-
nition of these replies, but also states that they are
more or less unsatisfactory to his mind—a conclusion
in which many of the readers of Mr. Lowe's letters
will agree. This is really too bad, because it amounts
to a charge against a writer on a solemn and important
subject, that he has only considered one side of it.

But, after all, sir, I am satisfied that this dispute, which
has run on so long, and produced so much bitterness and
ill-feeling, is, in truth,only a mis-understanding in the right
sense of that word, which, alas I is so common a cause of
dispute, as to have come in ordinary language to mean
disputes themselves, however occasioned. A. little reflec-
tion, I think, will show both that Mr. Macnaught, in a
most true and real sense, holds the Bible to be infallible'
while Mr. Lowe and his party, in an equally true and real
sense, hold it to he fallible.

To understand this seeming paradox, it is needful to
notice that all truth has t ro perfectly distinct parts-Ist,
The objective part, or the facto external to the mind on
which it is founded; and, 2nd, The subjective part, or that
which it becomes when received into and looked at as
part of the human mind and consciousness—for instance,
the rotation of the earth is generally believed to be a
truth, but the objective part of this truth, that upon
which it is founded, viz., the apparent movement
of the heavenly

bodits, is evidentt,
during many ages it actually did deceive met. ,
taken, however, into the mind and passed through the
alembic of reason, the real and approximately Infallible
truth comes forth. Now, in the same way Mr. Macnaught
undoubtedly holds that infallible teaching resides in the
wording of the Bible—that is, such teaching as will infall-
ibly guide us to salvation, and that, of course, is all we
need care about—but that this teaching cannot be drawn
forth without the operation upon these words of man's
conscience, reason, mind, whatever you like to call it
but which I would prefer to call the Spirit of God. On
the other hand, Mr. Lowe and his party will hardly, I
think, be prepared to maintain a real objective infallibility
in the Bible.

fallible.

; when

Mr. Macnaught has said that he holds every word of
the Bible to be inspired—full of the light of God's truth—
but he thinks that that light is reflected through the
human media, by means of which it comes to us, and re-
-1 by those media, and that the true and pure light

cannot be seen without the human mind and conscience,
aided by god's spirit which resides in them when earnest
and sincere, putthsg themselves int,

sition as

those who first received such pu

ruth. Newton's ex-

periments with the prism exactl

ate this. The

prismatic rays refracted by the glass, and appearing as
red, blue, yellow, f4cc., are all in reality light; but they
do not appear as pure white light, until another prism is
placed beside the first in exactly a corresponding position ;
the coloured rays entering into this latter are refracted
back again, or re-united to each other, and the pure light
re-appears. In like manner the Bible's outward teaching,
joined to the inward prayerful consideration of each
reader, gives to him, to his own mind, and for his own
guidance, a net result of pure truth, a net result of infalli-
bility—not in dogmatic doctrine, for all words must be
inadequate to convey to finite minds a full conception of
an infinite being, but infallibility as to saving truth.
This, I believe, Mr. Macnaught holds ; this is also what
I suppose Mr. Lowe holds, and this can avidently be the
only infallibility of the Bible. It is, of coarse, absurd for
Mr. Lowe to hold any external' objective infallibility in
the Bible, while, I have no doubt, he continually urges
his congregation to pray over its pages, and ask the Holy
Spirit to guide them in its perusal. It is clear this is the
general teaching of all the Schools, because all feel that
many texts of scripture will mislead if taken in their mere
external meaning, and not applied 4-

o the reader's own

case, with due consideration, also, to whom and under
what circumstances, the words were first addressed.
this feeling as to the fallibility of the external words of
the Bible is sometimes exhibited very strongly by Mr.
Lowe's party ; for instance, St. Paul says, "He that
regardeth the day regardeth it to the Lord, and he that
regardeth not the day regardeth it not to. the Lord ;" and
again, " Let no man judge you in meats or in drinks, or in
new moons, or the Sabbath day." Now, to a plain man,
these texts, especially when taken in connection with their
context, seem clearly enough to indicate that Christian
men are to enjoy perfect freedom as to thf employment
of their time on the Lord's day, as well as on others. Mr.
Lowe's friends, however, clearly regard these passages as
fallible, because they say you cannot get the real truth
from them, in fact, they will deceive you until you apply

LA- AI

BY AU

the b,
desirable

wateria

. .
For further particu
CURRY 8t CO.. B

vs previously d
t SALE E
at Thr,

4:-A,144 y
5, or „,
fe