The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1880-04-07
BROAD CHURCH THEORIES OF
INSPLRA TON.


is more doubted in our time than it has
ever been since the days of Constantine.
We have no interest in denying this state
ment. We think it not unlikely that it
rs true statement. We might indeed
offset it by the counterstatement that
Christianity has at no time been so gem
orally diffused and accepted among men.
One of the most admirable things in that
curious and fascinating, and yet unsat-
lstying, book of Mr. Mallock's on the
conditions on which alone life is worth
living, is the striking exhibition it con-
talns of the extent and manner in which
the world as whole has in this, our age,
for the first time. so to say, become con-
scious of itself and of its own united
thought. Mr. Mallocks object is to
point out that there has never before
been such blank and at the same time
consentaneous skepticism in the world as
there is now This may be so-but it is
none the less fact, and largely for the
same reasons and upon analogous evil
dence, that the religious and Christian
faith of mankind has never at any former
period mirrored itself so distinctly, so WV
idly, SO coherently, in its own self-con-
sclousness as it does in this our era.
But our purpose was to follow another
and somewhat less speculative line of
remark Mr.. Froude attributes the skep-
ticism of the age in which we live in great
part to the feeble resistance that is OBJ
posed to the assaults of the stalwart ag-
gressor by select champions of the old
doctrines, such as the late Dean Afford
Whilst we are of opinion that this is an
exaggerated view, we are not prepared to
deny that there is some truth in it. The
skepticism that is now so rife originated,
however, mainly in two sources. The
one was the spirit of rationalistic criti-
cism; engendered and strikingly exem-
plifed in the 18th century in certain of
the writings of the Pantheistic Jew of
Rotterdam, Benedict Spinoza The other
was the abuse Of the study of nature and
the spirit Of overweening confidence in
the methods of scientific inquiry that had
been so splendidly inaugurated by Fran
CTS Bacon. Modern infdelity is the un-
worthy offspring of the Reformation.
From believing everything the revulsion
rs not a surprising one to believing moth
ing. Here, as elsewhere the direction is
a sound one, In meoziis t,IttSS5nsals IBIS. p"
The rationalistic temper and principle
did not find their first expression among
the deists and atheists of the 18th and
18th centuries nor even among the Sad
ducees of Palestine in the DAYS of our
Lord the true father of skeptical ration
alism was Cain, who slew his brother.
But the main question is not the one as
to the origin of the evil However the
evil originated, it exists, and exerts an
influence, and exerts powerful as well
as disastrous influence; and it is poor
way to meet it that is adopted by those
who give an inch to the rapacious adver-
sary, forgetting that he will, without
doubt, in return for this small favor, take
an ell. When a Bengal tiger is escaped
from his cage and is loose among the
spectators at show of wild animals, it is
hardly the safe thing to humor, little by
little, his royal appetite for blood. Yet
this is exactly the course pursued by such
writers as Dean Afford, Dean Stanley,
Canon Farrar, and the rest, who admit,
and most earnestly, contend, that the
Scriptures contain revelation, but are
unwilling to say that, in the strict sense
at least, the Scriptures are revelation.
They hold the Bible to be inspired for
substance of doctrine" The ideas. thew
maintain, are divine, but the words are
fallible because human. This cannot be
the true doctrine Of inspiration. It un-
moves The whde Aotilla Of celestial truths
and leaves it at the mercy Of the open
sea. The effort that has been made to
csricature the orthodox position has been