The permission, however, of those whose bounden duty it is not merely to baffle people-like grown-up children — with hard answers,' but to explain those answers, is not likely in these days to be asked before proceeding to inquire more closely what it is precisely that these words mean. And as for the inquiry what this word inspiration' means,—it is one which the English clergy, above all other men, as persons who have solemnly undertaken before God and man to banish and drive away, with all faithful diligence, all erroneous and strange 'doctrines contrary to God's word,'* are in honour and conscience bound to undertake. 6 6 6 Is it, then, contrary to God's word' to seek for physical science there, or is it not? Is it contrary to God's word' to import into it a theory of historical infallibility, or is it not? Is the notion-which some people seem to hold for incontestablet-that all arguments ad hominem and other forms of accommodation' must be denied to a divine teacher, aner'roneous and strange doctrine,' or not? These questions must be answered at the very threshold of those Biblical studies to which the clergy by solemn vow, and the laity by the deep interest of the subject, are now alike invited. M. Guizot gives the following reply : 'No one whose mind is free from prejudice can read the Sacred Books in their original languages, whether Hebrew or Greek, without often meeting amid their sublime beauties not merely with faults of style, but even of grammar,-with violations of those natural and logical rules of language, that belong to all languages alike. Must we say, then, that these faults are derived from the same source as the doctrines with which they are mingled, and that the former are, no less than the latter, divinely inspired? Yet this is the position maintained by certain pious and learned men. In such an assertion I can only see a lamentable confusion of thought, whereby the meaning and object of the Inspiration of the Scriptures is profoundly misunderstood, and their authority gravely compromised. God has not willed in this miraculous way to teach men grammar,-nor yet geology, astronomy, geography, chronology. It is on their relations to the Creator, on their duties towards Him and each other, and on the rule of their faith and practice, that He has vouchsafed them a divine illumination. It is on Religion and Morality, and on these alone, that the Inspiration of the Scriptures has any bearing.' (P. 154.) This reply has, indeed, often been given before; as, for instance, not only in Essays and Reviews - It could not have * Ordination Service. † E.g. Dr. Pusey, Sermon on Everlasting Punishment,' p. 25. 6 been the object of a Divine revelation to instruct men in Physical Science' (p. 250)-but also in Aids to Faith,' which was written in reply to them-It is a question on which we may safely agree to differ, whether or not every word, not only doctrinal, but also historical or scientific, must be infallibly correct and true.' (Bishop Browne, p. 317.) Nay, it is given by implication (as M. Guizot justly remarks) in that very passage of Scripture which is most often quoted in support of the opposite view: All Scripture is given by 'inspiration of God; and is profitable for what? for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness' (2 Tim. iii. 16):-not for instruction in science and history. But to all this an objection is raised: and it is one which appears to us of sufficient weight to deserve a more careful reply than M. Guizot has given to it. If, on the one hand (it is urged) you admit the inspiration of the sacred books; yet, on the other, allow that this inspiration is not entire and absolute,-who is to make the selection between the two? Who shall draw the line where inspiration stops? Who is to say what texts, what passages, are inspired, and what are not inspired? To divide in this way the sacred books, is to rob them of their superhuman character; it is to destroy their authority, by abandoning them to all the uncertainties, all the disputes, of men. An inspiration that is complete and constant can alone command our Faith. 'Yes,—such is the everlastingly repeated demand of human weakness! Created intelligent and free, man would fain use to the utmost his intelligence and liberty; and yet at the same time, feeling his weakness and insufficiency, he invokes a guide, a support-and that support he hopes for must needs be, forsooth, immoveable and infallible. He seeks some fixed point to which he may attach himself with an absolute and permanent security.' (P. 157.) The allegation is, no doubt, perfectly true; but it hardly appears to us to answer the objection. Mankind assuredly do for ever cry aloud to Heaven for some infallible' guidance. What they crave for is something definite and tangible—some oracle, some pope, some priest, to which they may run for help under every conceivable doubt or difficulty. And when from oracle, pope, and priest they are successively warned off, and directed to a Book as the infallible thing they seek, they have surely a perfect right to ask, and to expect a clear answer to the question, whether the book is infallible wholly or in part, and if in part-in which part.* It seems to us perfectly impossible to arrive at any solution of these and a hundred other * Cf. Abp. Longley's Pastoral, p. 6; and Abp. Thomson's, p. 10. difficulties, so long as the gross and mechanical notion is maintained, that Inspiration is in any way-wholly or in partequivalent to Infallibility. We do not believe that there is any such thing to be hoped for as absolute infallibility in this world. Indeed, it is not easy to see how such a thing would be compatible with that moral probation in accepting or rejecting the truth, which experience indicates to be our lot on earth, and which the Bible itself distinctly teaches. Religion presupposes in all those who will embrace it a certain degree of integrity and honesty, which it was intended to try whether men have or not; and to exercise, in such as have it, in order to its improvement.'* 'If any man will do His will, he shall 'know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.' (John vii. 17.) And this rejection of an absolute infallibility need not in the slightest degree interfere with an almost unlimited reverence for Scripture, as the Church's lesson-book and standard of appeal. The fatal error of the Romish Church,' as Coleridge long ago pointed out, did not consist in contending for a practical infallibility of Council or Pope, but in laying claim to an absolute immunity from error, and consequently for the unrepealability of their decisions.'t And so the capital error of Protestant theology has not been its practical reverence for Scripture in making it the final standard of appeal, but its theoretical exaggerations about the degree and method of its infallibility. From these exaggerations, however, the symbolical books of the Church of England are singularly free. So far is she from being entangled in the extravagant dogmatic statements put forth by other Protestant bodies on this subject, that her Articles are positively free from all dogmatism whatever, about either the nature or extent of Bible Inspiration. While the Swiss Confession states the Bible to be itself the true Word of God;' the Belgic the naked truth of God;' the French the summary of all truth;' the Augsburg the pure Word of God; the Declaration at Thorn, the infallible and perfect rule;' and the Swiss Consensus, a code inspired, not only in its (Hebrew) consonants, but even in its vowel points; and not only in its matter, but even in its words; '-in striking contrast to all this, the English Articles, written at the same time, and amid an atmosphere redolent of such language as the most ⚫ certain and infallible words of God,' the most certain and in Bp. Butler, Analogy, Part ii. chap. viii. fallible truths of God's Word,'* have not a syllable about any such theories. They simply lay down the practical rule in which all Protestants (along with Irenæus, Athanasius, Augustine, and the whole uncorrupted Church of East and West,) agree, that Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: SO that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an Article of Faith, or be thought requisite or 'necessary to salvation.'† It will be remembered, that it was on this absolutely unassailable ground that the Privy Council based their late Judgment, in the cases of Dr. Williams and Mr. Wilson. And thus far, at least, their Judgment is supported by the opinion of the highest ecclesiastical authorities of the realm. It was there stated that the framers of the Articles have not used the word "inspiration," as applied to the Holy Scriptures; nor have they laid down anything as to the extent, 'nature, or limits of that operation of the Holy Spirit.' And in almost precisely similar language, the Archbishop of Canterbury writes, I was in nowise called upon to attempt any de'finition of Inspiration, seeing that the Church had not thought 'fit to prescribe one' (Pastoral, p. 2). The Archbishop of York, The Church has laid down no theory of Inspiration' (Past., p. 10). Bishop Thirlwall, Our Church has pronounced no decision, has laid down no definition, on this subject.' (Reply to Dr. Williams, p. 84.) Bishop Browne, 'It seems pretty well agreed among thoughtful men at present, that definite theories of Inspiration are doubtful and dangerous (Aids to Faith, p. 302); and Dean Milman, All the questions which are now so widely agitating the general mind concerning 'the origin, authorship, authenticity, integrity, and inspiration of the Scriptures, are not within the purview of the Thirty-nine Articles. Many opinions on these subjects may be erroneous. . . . I cannot find any express, or indeed fairly inferred condemnation of them in the Articles.' (Speech, printed in Fraser's Magazine,' March 1865.) 6 But we may go farther even than this. A certain school at the present day, who appear to have set their hearts upon adding, by fair means or foul, a fortieth article ‡ to our present *Necessary Doctrine, &c., A.D. 1543. † Article VI. on Holy Scripture. This intention is at last distinctly avowed in a most mischievous report, presented by the chairman (Archd. Denison) of a committee of Gravamina to Convocation, on Feb. 17, 1865. (See 'Guardian' odd but perfectly sufficient number, are very fond of appealing to the Judgment of the Universal Church upon this point -viz., the identity of Inspiration with Infallibility. They have been challenged over and over again to point out where, except in their own Imagination, that Judgment is to be found recorded. But the challenge is made in vain. No answer, it appears, can be given. Now, we ask these men, as believers in the Divine superintendence and government of the Church, why it should not be held true that it was under express Providential guidance that the Catholic Church, from the beginning, did NOT make any formal decision on this subject? Why are we to be perpetually taught that the Church's dogmatic action has ever been under the special guidance of her Divine Head, and yet in the same breath told that where, on an important subject, she has been restrained from dogmatic statement, that restraint is a mere unfortunate accident, which is now to be redressed by a vote of the English Convocation? That restraint, that silence, is indeed most remarkable. The air was for ages full of the elements for decisions, that would have thrown the minds of thoughtful churchmen into agonising disquietude. The (so-called) Fathers of the Church undoubtedly held views of Inspiration that few educated men now can hold. For they followed implicitly the opinions of the Jews about the Old Testament-opinions which, beginning with the national reverence felt after the Captivity for their ancient Sacred Records, gradually grew in extravagance; till in the ninth century after Christ the very Chaldee Paraphrase was held sacred into the bargain, and was devoutly read in the synagogues, even where that language had become totally unknown.* Augustine, the undisputed master of all subsequent Western Theology, thought (with the rest of contemporary Christendom) that Christ, as the Head, dictated what the Apostles, as the hands, wrote: and that the very mistakes and discrepancies of the Evangelists were purposely inserted by the Holy Spirit, 'dividing to each man severally as He will." (1 Cor. xii. 11.)‡ Origen, the great critic and commentator of the Antenicene 6 of March 1st, Supplement.) And in a Charge which we have seen by the Bishop of Ontario, it is argued that nothing short of two additional articles on Inspiration and Eternal Punishment, passed in Synod by the Anglican Church, can save us from heresy and schism. * Zunz, Gottesd. Vorträge, p. 9. † De Consensu Evangg., i. 35. Ibid., ii. 21. |