The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-11-04

In the course OF his paper read be-
fore the Church congress at Norwich,
England, Professor Bonney T.. r. S.,
Canon of Manchester, said:
There can be little doubt that at the
present. time the gravest difficulties
arise from the miraculous element in
the Scriptures. 1t Is their historical
value which is disputed or denied.
With such questions as those which
more than once have agitated the
church-questions as ito the divine ma
ture or the relation of the Godhead and
the manhood Of Jesus Christ-science
cannot deal; they belong not to it's pro-
vince, to to that of THE metaphyslcian,
but with such a one as whether he rose
from the dead, since it is question of
evidence, science, both directly and in
directly is much concerned.
l make this assertion with the more
confidence, because one of our most en-
lnent men of science, the late Mr. II. II.
Huxley, who felt himself compelled to
take the agnostlc position frankly adj
mitted not long before his death that
physical science, in fact, has had
nothing directly to do with the criticism
of the Gospels; 1t is wholly incompetent
to furnish demonstraitive evidence that
any statement made in these histories
Is untrue. Indeed modern physiology
can find parallels in nature for events
Of apparently the most eminently SUI
+,1ro Cd iy, 0f
those histories" Again, in another
place he grants that there is no impos-
sibility except such as involves a con-
tradiction in terms. 1t may be improb-
able that a man should walk on the wa
ter, be born without human interven-
ton, rise again, but we cannot say 1t is
impossible for we are only at the be-
ginning of our knowledge Of nature,
and cannot set bounds to it's possibili-
ties.
l cannot deny that the increase of
scientific knowledge has deprived parts
of the earlier books of the Bible of the
historical value which was generally at
tributed to them by our forefathers.
The story of creation in the book of
Genesis, unless we play fast and loose,
either with words or with science, cam
not be brought into harmony with what
we have learned from geneology, Its
chronological statements are imperfect,
If not sometimes inaccurate. The sto-
ries of the fall, of the flood, and of the
Tower of Babel, are incredible in their
present form. Some historical element
may underlie many Of the traditions in
the first eleven chapters of that book,
but this we cannot hope to recover.
| They proclaim spiritual facts of the
highest Importance, such as that GOD,
and God alone, is creator and ruler OF
all, that there is an innate depraVity in
the nature of man, that sin entails suf-
fering, and the sinner cannot escape
from His all-seeing eye, though in the
midst Of Judgment. He remembers
mercy. In short, these narratives are
allegorical not historical. We receive
them as inspired, and this none the less
when we learn, as of late years we
have learned, the source whence they
were derived. But they are spiritual
not scientific truths. We must be pre-
pared to leave the accuracy of some
narratives an open question, to carry
them to a suspense account" to grant
that some prophecies are homiletic
rather than predictive;in short to con-
cede larger share than was formerly
done to the human element in the Old
Testament. This means a change
and that an important one-in our
ideas Of the nature and the function of
inspiration. The Church of England,
very wisely has never committed itself
to any definition of Inspiration or to
precise statements as to its functions.
If we admit so much in regard to the
Old Testament, do we not detract from
the historic value of the New? / can
not deny that to some extent this must
be, but we shall find that it is only in
matters of unimportant detail The
books of the New Testament stand on
very different footing to most Of
those in the older covenant 1t is true
that the Gospels are not, as far as we
know, strictly contemporaneous rec
ords, so we must admit the possibility
of variations and even inaccuracies n
details being introduced by oral tradi-
ton; but the interval was too short for
these introductions to be serious, and
we know that the matters of doctrinal
signifcance-sueh as the birth, the di-
vinity and the resurrection of the Sa-
viour--were regarded from the first as
integral parts of the new covenant, In