The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-06-14
VIEWS.
His Opinions on the Briggs and
Bridgeman Cases.
The Professor Knows the Uncertainty Of the
Authorship OF the Four Gospels-Vari-
GUS Creeds Condemned "a Bad.

| Especial TO THE HERALD-Examiner Dispatch.
New YORK, June l3.-Colonel Robert G.
Ingersoll returned to this city Wednesday
from trip 10 Montana Just as soon as he
was installed in his office in Wall street a
reporter swooped down upon him and asked
for his views or the attitude Of the general
| assembly at Detroit in the case of DR..
Briggs, the alleged heretical uttersnces of
the Rev. Heber Newton, and the desertion
Of one creed for another by Rev. DR..
Bridgeman.
Progress in religion is the slowest, be-
cause man is kept back by sentimentality,
by the efforts Of his parents, by old associ-
atoms. Now in most departments of
knowledge man has advanced. There is q
growing desire on the part of intelligent
men TO have a religion fit to keep company
with the other sciences Our creeds were
made in a time of ignorance. They suited
very well fiat world and God who lived
in the SKY Just above US. and who used the
lightning TO destroy His enemies. Now we
know the earth is no longer fiat; heaven is
not Immediately above US, the universe
has been infinitely enlarged and we have at
last found our earth is but grain of sand,
speck on the great shore OF the in
finite. There is contradiction be-
tween our theology and other sciences. Men
of intelligence feel this. DR.. Briggs con-
Guided that perfectly good and intelligent
God could not have created billions of
sentiment beings knowing that they were
to be eternally miserable. Now" con-
tinued Colonel IngersolI, "Dr. Briggs is
undoubtedly an Intelligent man. He
knows nobody on earth knows who wrote
the five books of Moses; they were not
written until a hundred years after Moses
IL IS IL
not Jewish book; he knows the Songs of
Solomon were not written by Solomon; he
knows that the book OF Ecclesiastes was
written. So Briggs knows nobody lives
who has ever seen the original manuscript,
or whoever saw any body that did see one,
or that claims to have seen one. He knows
that nobody knows who wrote Matthew or
Mark or Luke or John. He also knows
that the book of Revelation is an insane
production. DR.. Briggs also knows that
the way in which these books came to be
canonical, and he knows that the way was
no more binding than resolution passed
by political convention. He also knows
that many books we're left out that
had for centuries equal authority with
those that were put in. He knows that
the trouble commenced in John,
aud that John was not written until
probably enc hundred and fifty years,
possibly two hundred years after
Christ was dead. So he also knows that
the sin against the Holy Ghost is an inter
polation; that Il came not to bring peace
but sword if not in Interpolation is an
absolute contradiction. Knowing these
Things, and knowing there are $1,000 or
40, 600 mistakes in the Old Testament; that
there are great many contradictions and
absurdities: that many OF the laws are
cruel and infamous and have been made
only by a barbarous people, Dr. Briggs has
concluded that after all the torch that sheds
the serenest and divinest light is the human
reason, and that we must investigate the
Bible as we do other books. AT least L
suppose be has reached some such con-
ciusion.
''The Presbyterian creed is a very bad
creed. Ii has been stumbling block not
only of the head but of the heart for many
generations. And here let me say as |
have said many times that / do not hate
Presbyterians because among them | count
some of my best friends, but hate Presby
terianism. Now as with DR.. Briggs SO
with DIR. Bridgeman, although il seems
TO me he simply jumped from the frying
pan into the fire and why he should prefer
the Episcopal creed to the Baptist is more
is in fact just as bad as the Presbyterian.
DR.. Bridgeman will find himself exactly in
the position Of Rev. Mr.. Newton. provided
he expresses his thought, but | account for
the Bridgemans and for NewtOns by the
fact there is still sympathy in the human
heart and that there is still intelligence in
the human brain. oppose nothing that is
good in any creed; / attack only that which
is ignorant, cruel and absurd, and / make
the attack in the interest CT human liberty
and for the sake of human happiness"