The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-03-08

1t is obvious, as the Rev. DR.. Cox of
Brooklyn has remarked. that the Presby-
terrain Church is face to face with a revolu.
tionary movement within the ranks of It's
clergy and divinity teachers, directed
against the very foundations of It's re-
ligious belief. This rationalistic "leaven."
as another Presbyterian minister describes
1t, must be expelled by heroic measures or
1t will surely lcaven the whole lump.
DIR. MCGIFFERT's treatment of the Last
Supper as n simple social meal, without
any mysterious Significance or symbolism,
marks simply the advanced position of the
revolutionists as it now is; but they must
go much further. II the same method of
analysis is applied to all the Gospel nara
tives of supernatural occurrences, what Is
left of them7 DR.. BRIGGS prepared the
way in his rationalistic criticism of the
Scriptures, though he avoided the logical
conclusions to which 1t led 80 indisputa-
bly,. or course, II the Bible is to be
tested after the scientific method to deter
mine It's title to credibility, It's whole
supernatural character goes by the board.
If 1t presents only the imaginlngs of men as
to mysteries of a world outside Of the reach
of sense, and not the positive and absolute
truth revealed by an omniscient GOD to It's
inspired writers, 1t Is not the Word of Con,
but merely a record of the cropping of hui
man intelligence after undiscoverable truth.
None of the occurrences described as super.
natural in the Scriptures comes within the
requirements of scientific demonstration.
DR.. MCGIFFERT's reduction Of the Last Sup
per to a matter-of-fact meal purely is only a
single instance of the wholesale destruc-
tion Of the supernaturalism on which Chris
tianity rests. His method of approach
would destroy every miracle; the Virgin
birth, the Crucifxlon, the Resurrection,
and the whole scheme of salvation as pro-
pounded in the Scriptures and developed
by theology.
This leaven of unbelief has entered into
the Presbyterian Church, but it has not yet
been attacked squarely, much less expelled.
It is working more and more powerfully.
1t may not have affected the great body of
the Presbyterian laity, more especially that
part of it at q distance from the great urban
centres, and probably the older school Of
the ministry is generally free from it;
but it is discoverable among the most
scholarly n influential of Presbyterian
theologians, and appears Enthusiastically in
the more important of the Presbyterian
theological ~seminaries, either in frank
confession or q tolerance which midi
Gates that it Is not unwelcome. The Rev.
DR.. WAKEFIELD, the Professor of Didac-
tic and Polemical Theology In Prince
ton Theological Seminary, is quoted as
saying that nothing shows better chow
deeply the canker has eaten into our
Church" than the circumstance that "now-
adays some Presbyterians write of JESUS
In a manner indistinguishable from Unita-
rianism y; and the remark is sustained by the
declaration of a Unitarian minister, preach
ing in New York last Sunday, that DIR.
MCGIFFERT has turned on the sunlight,
has dispelled the fog"
The next meeting of the General Assem-.
bly,, or supreme ecclesiastical court of the
Presbyterians, is to be held at Warsaw In
Indiana on the 10th of May, and from its
proceedings we shall learn whether this
"canker" is to go on eating into the vitals
of that Church, or whether it is to be cut
out by heroic ecclesiastical surgery.