CHAPTER IV. GENERAL RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION. The ON the whole then it appears to us that there are abundant and most satisfactory grounds on which we claim, and may reasonably hope to vindicate for the Bible, the highest authority that can attach to any thing save God and God's vicegerent Conscience. reverence, which we regard as due to Holy Writ in consideration of the part which the Bible has taken in the history of the world-in consideration of the tendencies which are discernible in the pages of the Bible -and in consideration that all good things derive their excellence from the presence or influence of God's Holy Spirit, is of the same kind but of an incomparably higher degree than the submission which may be claimed from his offspring by a wise and loving parent. Thus, because of its goodness, we are convinced that the Bible is richly inspired and of high authority: but, at the same time, the facts, which are apparent on the face of the inspired writings themselves, altogether forbid our entertaining the idea of inspirational infallibility. In this state of the case it is observable that, on the one hand, no valid reason can be shown in support of the popular misconception regarding biblical infallibility; whilst, on the other hand, its origin, growth and prevalence may be easily accounted for by a remembrance of the real sanctity of the inspired volume, the convenience and requirements of all theologians in their controversies, and the credulity and superstition of the unlearned multitude. Throughout this entire volume it has been our endeavour to uphold the just sacredness of Scripture while we have striven to overthrow the idea of scriptural infallibility and this we have laboured to accomplish under the avowed and deep conviction that the effects of this idea have been so banefully pernicious in numbing and deadening the faith of the earnest, the simpleminded and the thoughtful that we, as lovers of the truth, are bound to oppose it and, as far as in us lies, to banish and drive it away as an erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word. Let any, who feel this conviction, take part with us in pulling down that which is false and in building up the truth. Let all so labour with energy, with prudence, with love, and, if need be, even under persecution: and let this be our sacrifice and thankoffering to our heavenly Father for that He hath removed from our minds a parasitical excrescence which would have lessened, if it did not destroy, our spiritual joy and peace. Let this be our thankoffering inasmuch as the credibility of any or of all the sacred writings-which rests in the estimation of all men, on proper and peculiar foundations wholly apart from Inspiration-comes to our judgment supported by proofs which are for us the stronger because they will not be invalidated, but, on the contrary, will be confirmed, by our discovering in Holy Writ such inaccuracies and discrepancies as denote, in every trustworthy and contemporaneous history, the presence of unsophisticated testimony and the absence of collusion. From some of us, my brethren lay and clericalwould to God it might be said from all the dream of an infallible Book has passed as thoroughly away as ever melted from before the eyes of Luther the mistcloud of an infallible Pope, or, as ever vanished from a man, who had learned to know his own heart, the notion of an infallible Self. If truth, like Rachel of old, has carried off the superstitious teraphim of our traditional, bibliolatrous belief in the Bible's infallibility, let us not, like Laban, waste time and energy in seeking to recover those vain and cumbrous idols: but, rather, let us thank God and take courage because He, who of old spake to the fathers by the prophets and who in these last times hath spoken by His son, hath confirmed the tidings of salvation to us by the testimony of those who heard the Lord; so that, whatever we may have lost, we have found Him, who must be worshipped in spirit and in truth-who seeketh such to worship Him-and who hath given and doth fulfil, to every earnest follower, a promise of Inspiration, even a promise of the Spirit of truth to dwell with us and be in us, the Comforter who shall abide with us for ever. THE END. |