The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-12 00:00:00

is not co-extensive with the sacred volume, and that it is left
to each individual to decide which is the Divine element
and which is the human, and to reject that which does not
approve itself to a man's verifying faculty. This new prin-
ciple struck at the root of all fixed doctrine as deducible
from Holy Scripture, for each minister and each lay member
would feel at liberty to eliminate all such passages as were
repugnant to his own views, feelings, and convictions. It
might well be asked what would become of Christianity if it
was to be surrendered to the caprice of every mind. It
might be urged that the Articles of the Church would act
as a check on these dangerous innovations—but how
long would that be suffered to exist when the basis had been
sapped to its foundation? Each distinctive doctrine of
Christianity would disappear in turn from the formularies
of the Church, and the result would be simple deism—that
deism which reared its head towards the close of the 17th
century. But the friends of the Church need not feel any
misgivings,for as she had outlived other assaults, she would
outlive the present. Another error to be combated at the
present moment was that which had been raised with re-
spect to the inspiration of Holy Scripture. It might have
pleased Almighty Gad to have communicated His word and
will in some such supernatural manner as to have conveyed
it in every case to the ear and heart of men without the in-
tervention of any subordinate agency. There would then
have been no question of the Divine and the human ele-
ment. But it seemed good to him that men should bo the
instrument and channel by which the revelations of Him-
self and His counsels towards men should be imparted, and
in intrusting the prophets and apostles with that commis-
sion he did not divest each individual of his peculiarities of
temperament and talent. Thus far we must be prepared
to allow the human element, and to acknowledge that those
who were the appointed channels of communication were
not mere machines. There was a wide difference between
the authority which teaches the very heart of an inspired
writer and the absolute dictation of every word by the
Holy Spirit. All we ought to maintain was the absolute
and universal authority of every portion of Scripture as
written uc der the Divine superintendence which
guarded the writer from error—the exact words
in some cases being dictated, as in the case of the De-
calogue. The theory of complete verbal inspiration
was not necessary to the maintenance of the position held
by the Church, that the canon of Scripture not only contains
God's Word, but God's Word written; nor were the teachers
of the Church called upon to lay down any new theory of
inspiration, but rather to invite her sons to adopt the decla-
ration of unfeigned belief in all the canonical Scriptures of
the Old end New Testament as the written Word of God,
and to teach the people from it as having that Divine au.
thority. It was satisfactory to him to find that this view of
inspiration was in accordance with the opinion expressed by
his predecessor seven years ago. It might be asked, "If
these be your views of the authority of Scripture, how will
you reconcile some of its statements with the more recent
discoveries of science ?" lie thought that too much alarm
had been felt in some quarters on that point. The Word of
God did not profess to teach us science. The object of re-
velation was not to teach us the secrets of nature, but to
make us wise unto salvation. The Word of God might in-
cidentally touch on subjects bearing on physical science,
but it never introduced them with the view of affirming
scientific truth. Unless the Word of God distinctly initiated
a proposition to be received as revealed truth we need not
allow ourselves to be perplexed byany apparent discrepancy
between the two. Let science pursue her own course, and
let us not be ever imagining that she ever entertains designs
hostile to the truth of Gbd's Word, Let us devote ourselves
to our holy calling, in full assurance that our faith rests on
a foundation which it is impossible for any human efforts to
subvert. It was most satisfactory to find that so many able
replies had been published to the attacks which had been
made on the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and particu-
larly to the critical examination of the Pentateuch and the
book of Joshua, It was his firm belief that if the negative
school of theology pursued its course in the same direction
and in the same spirit, it must before long work out its own
condemnation. It must soon exhibit the consequence to which
the principle leads—the negation of all that is distinctive
in Christianity—and then would follow what had been wit-
nessed in Germany. a yearning after a definite system of
religious belief, to meet the want and cravings of fallen
nature, and a return to that belief which alone can satisfy

it. Considerable alarm had been felt as to the recent deci-
sion of the Privy Council, but he thought that no general
conclusion as to any future decisions could be drawn from
the tenor of that decision, and much of the apprehension
which prevailed was, ho thought, quite groundless. His
desire was to abate the alarm which was not unnaturally
felt when the decision was supposed to have had a much
wider scope, and to dissuade his iev. brethren from com-
mitting themselves to any particular line of conduct in con-
sequence of apprehensions which might have less founda-
tion than many persons imagined.