Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-05-29

God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt
be saved" (Rom. 1870. Christ declared: If
ye believe not that am He We shall die in your
sins" (John S:24). whatsoever shall deny Me
Father which is in heaven" ont. 10:33). mo
man cometh to the Father but by Me" (John
1461). Martineau, therefore, in refusing to
believe in the resurrection Of Christ, and in re-
jecting the Savior puts himself among those to
whom Christ and the Scripture deny salvation.
Yet DR.. Briggs, with full knowledge Of these
facts, states In his defense: 1T is plain to me
that Martineau has gained a higher stage of
Christian freedom and direct communion with
God, and it is immateral how he gained it,"
(p. 67.)
If men Of that type are to be heralded as
representative Christian men. IL after rejecting
Christ and the Scripture, they have entered
into friendly communion with God and OBJ
tanned divine assurance through the forms of
the reason, then our entire church life and
activity is a mistake and OF all men we are most
miserable. 1t would be wise to close our
vote our money to causes better adapted to
human advancement than home and foreign
missions can be.
Surely it is clear that the final judgment of
the New York presbytery on the first and sec
ond charges is not in accordance with the law
and evidence in the case and that it should be
reversed
The Truthfulness of the Bible.
The third charge has reference to the subjec t
Of inspiration. In it DIR. Briggs is charged with
teaching that errors may have existed in the
original text Of Scripture as it came from its
authors. DR.. Briggs admits the correctness Of
the facts cited in the specifications, and that
the charge correctly states his teaching on this
point, but denies that it is an of ense.
Our standards assert that the Holy Scrip
lures are the Word of God; therefore to say
that there may have been errors in the original
text is to assert that God may have put into
that text that which is not true.
DR.. Briggs view Of inspiration does not give
assurance Of entire truthfulness in the genuine
text Of the Holy Scripture. On the contrary,
it enables him to teach, as We shall show from
the evidence submitted, that the genuine text
of the Bible contains errors.
1t is in evidence that DIR. Briggs maintains
three propositions in regard to the Holy Scrip
ture which, if true render not merely possible,
but even quite certain, that errors pervade its
contents. They are vitality connected with his
view on this question.
l. He contends that instead of saying the
Scriptures are the Word of God, the true state
ment is that they contain" the Word of God,
using that expression not in the shorter cat
echism sense, which is equivalent to the state
ment that the Scriptures are the Word Of God
but in the sense that some parts Of their con-
tents are not the Word OF God. (The Bible,
the Church and the Reason, p. 99)
2. He makes the uti-confessonal statement
that there are in the Holy Scripture certain cir
cumstantial and non-essential elements which
are not properly the product Of inspiration and
which are porvaded by errors. Inaugural. p.
So In our standards some portions of the
Bible are regarded as more important than
others. but all alike are regarded as truly in
spired and entirely truthful.
8. He affirms that not the language OF the
Bible, but the concept or thought conveyed by
the language is inspired. Inaugural add, PIP.
81, 32.)
In his view 1--WE cannot term the providential
care of God over the external production of His
word inspiration. Inaugural, PIP. 81, 49,
Biblical study. p. 1911
Thus the entire text of the Htle, from begin
ming to end. is exclusively of human and no: of
divine origin. 1t is the human setting. in
which the divine jewel" OF the substance of