The Portland daily press., 1892-12-12
THE NEW ORTHODOXY.
DR.. Merrill's Second Sermon in tho Series
The Inspiration of the Bible and Its

Nature.
Yesterday afternoon Rev. DR.. J. G.
Merrill of the Second Parish church
preached before large audience the
second of his series of sermons on s'The
New Orthoxy." He took his text from
Timothy, iii, 10. The preacher said that
the storm centre In theological discus
sion was just now over the question of
the inspiration of the Scriptures. This
subject would be made more plain to us
when we remembered that nowhere
does the Bible give us defini-
ton of its inspiration. Thus the man of
1900 and the man of 1900 may hold very
different ideas of the nature and extent
of inspiration. and yet the Word of God
will abide unchanged in spite of these
differences. DR.. Merrill said he believed
that it was Gods will to widen ans
views of sacred things as He widens his
views of other things. 1t might be
thought that God would have given the
revelation of His traths to the race per-
feet and complete in every particular,
and would have kept them through all
time. But He did not do any such thing.
He gave us in this as in other questions
facts that men we're to use in Shaping
their views; and our loyalty to Him and
the Bible is exactly in proportion to our
reyerent determination to have our
views include all the truth that we can
master bearing upon the question.
What are the facts in the case? The
book which we cali the Bible, and which
as true Protestants we all regard as au-
thority in matters of faith and conduct,
is made up of 6e books. These were
written very long ago. The original
copies of these books are. SO far as we
know, nowhere in existence. Old cop
les, not original, Of portions of the books
some of more and others OF less. are IN
existence. These, as you know. are
called manuscripts, and are numbered.
or are rather lettered A, B, G, etc. From
these manuscripts, which differ one from
another in minor matters and from quo
tat ens which were made in the sermons
and essays of the early Christian fathers,
the scholarship of our day has been able
to secure the most close reproductlon
probably of the original manuscripts
that has been in the hands of the church
for centuries.
So thorough and painstaking has been
the work done in this direction that I'M
less some other old manuscript or manu-
scripts can be found in the Old World,
little will remain for the scholars OF the
future to do.
But in spite of all that has been done,
it is found that there are slight errors in
the best possible copy of the Bible IN
the original tongues. Errors to be sure,
which have no weight for or against the
book as guide to heaven or to the living
a true life here. There seems to be no
possible way, therefore, of securing q
copy Of the Word of God which shall not
contain these errors.
Now. what is the duty of the Christian
of today In view of such facts. 1t Is SIM
ply to say that God has given US just
such Bible as He in His infinite Wis
dom. love and power knew was
best for US, and that it was no part OF
His plan to put into the hands OF hui
manlty book absolutely free from mis-
takes.
Some theologians whose minds are
differently constituted, would say and do
say, Mol God must have given to the
world e6 books in which there was as
they came from His hand no trace OF err
ror. The mistakes have come in as they
have bean translated and copied.
Now, this Is theory, and those who
hold II. doubtless do it with the best OF
motives, but there is no evidence In ex-
istence that 1t is true and the Bible itself
nowhere claims any.
pr. Merrill argued that those points in
the Bible which seemed in the eyes OF
some 10 be its imperfeotions were really
IL strong points. He illustrated this
point By referring to the character OF
Abraham Lincoln. He said that It a
csaticA human agency had chosen q man
for Lineoln,s work itwould have selected
a handsome, imposing man, who would
never have opened his lips except with q
most di9nified utterance. Yet what such
people would have considered failings in
their ideal, contributed to Lincoln's sue
cess in his great work.