The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-04-24
THE EVOLUTION OF DK. BRIGGS.


that the case of Rev. DR.. Charles A.
Briggs, of the Union Theological Semi
nary, will come up for discussion, delib-
Grafton and decision. The New York
Presbytery has elected delegation to the
forthcoming General Assembly distinctly
and decidedly hostile to DR.. Briggs, an in
dication that the judgment of the Presby-
terrain court of last resort will be against
Briggs and his seminary. The sentiment
Of the last General Assembly was over
whelmingly against him. and the drift Of
Presbyterian opinion is seemingly more
strongly and decidedly against him than
it was a year ago.
If the assembly held at Portland, Or,
next month decides against DR.. Briggs,
its action will compel Union Theological
Seminary TO decide whether it will remain
a Presbyterian institution or become an
independent school of divinity. The last
Presbyterian General Assembly resolved
that it had the veto power over the
appointment of DR.. Briggs to the chair of
Biblical theology in the seminary; the
trustees of the seminary answer that, the
Professor having been merely transferred
from one chair to another, the assembly
has no power of veto, and they are
resolved at all hazards to retain DIR.
Briggs and to continue to teach his
views. 1t is Union Theological Seminary,
speaking by its trustees and faculty, against
the General Assembly. The seminary stands
committed to the soundness of Briggs
views and teachings as to the Scriptures.
The present prospect, therefore, is of a
serious rupture IN the Presbyterian
church. for his seminary il richly en-
dowed, and DR.. Briggs counts among
his friends some of the ablest and most in
fuential Presbyterian clergymen in the
country, and he and his seminary
are representative Of q large num-
Der of theologians and Biblical crit
les, among whom are many prominent
ministers and teachers of divinity not
only in the Presbyterian but in other or
thodox denominations. DR.. Briggs is
leader of powerful faction of Presbyteri-
ans, and his views are supported by q
number of leading divines of the Protest
ant Episcopal church. It is very clear,
therefore, that the contest before the Gem
eral Assembly at Portland, Oregon, next
month, involves the future of the whole
Presbyterian church. The probable result
will be that DR.. Briggs and his seminary
will be placed under the ban of the Pres
byterian chu-ch; that he and his friends
will revolt and secede from the church and
establish new school of Presbyterianism.
The impending arraignment and proba-
bic conviction and Punishment of DR..
Briggs seems hardly consistent for a
church which is calling for / radical
revision OF its system of theology. The
Presbyterian church apparently is ready
to punish DR.. Briggs for departures from
standards it rejects itself DIR. Briggs is,
of course, hereto, tested by the West
minister Confession, but so are the ma
jority of Presbyterians heretics when they
demand the revision of the Westminster
Confession to the point of the rejection of
the Confessions doctrine of everlasting
punishment for the great mass of the hu-
man race. DR.. Briggs holds, with the most
critics of England, Scotland and
Germany, that the Pentateuch was
not written by Moses, but con-
sists of four independent records
of Jewish traditions; that David wrote
but small part of the Psalms; that Job
is Hebrew epic and the Song of Solomon
domestic drama; that Ecclesiastes was
not written by Solomon, but several CEN
turtles later; that Isaiah was written by at
least two authors, one of whom lived a
century later than Isaiah that Daniel was
written in the time of the Maccabees.
There is nothing very new or startling
in this so-ca.led "heresy," for Luther and
Calvin both INDUCED in this same kind of
historical Biblical criticism. The books of
the Bible known as canonical were selected
from q mass of Christian writings by a
Christian council. Luther, with char
acteristic robust common sense INDUCED
his Protestant right of private judgment
as to the sogndness of the discrimination
of this council and put the Epistle to the
Hebrews, Jude, James and the Apocalypse
at the end OF his version as deserving OF
less respect than the other portions of the
collection, CONTEMPORARY calling the
book of James that .trawy epistle" Calvin
denied that st. Paul wrote the Eplstle to
the Hebrews. and doubted the authenticity
OF the Second Peter. II is no more de-
structive criticism" for DR.. Briggs to follow
the great German Biblical scholar. Baur.
who denies the genuineness of Second
Thessalonians and Colossians. places the
Fourth Gospel in the second century and
the best half OF Isaiah at the end of the
exile. than it was for Luther to deny the
genuineness of the Epistle to the Hebrews
and the Epistle of James.
When the great Cardinal Newman left
the English church for that of Rome he
anticipated that very Biblical criticism
upon whica the Presbyterian church
threatens to divide.
Cardinal Newman argues that We canno,
depend solely upon the Bible alone; that
God has made revelations in some other
places than in the Bible. While he fully
admits. rs does DR.. Briggs, that the Bible
is inspired, he grants that it is not one
book, but great number of writings of
various persons. living at various times,
put together into one: that il has all such
characteristics as might attach 10 a book
uninspired; that the writers of the New
Testament never claim 10 be inspired; that
fourteen books of the New Testament are