Читать книгу: «The Arena. Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891», страница 11

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN ANCIENT AND MODERN THOUGHT IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

The vote of the New York Presbytery on the twelfth of May, to present the case of Prof. Charles A. Briggs¹⁰ before the synod will probably prove one of the most momentous moves made in recent years in the theological world. It is a positive challenge thrown before Presbyterians who hold views popularly termed “Higher Criticism.” It is a declaration of war to the knife on the part of those who oppose the revision of the Westminster Confession, and who cherish ancient thought. Nor is the opposition led by Dr. Briggs disposed to yield what is believed to be the only truth consistent with an intelligent conception of a just, loving, and wise God. The immediate cause of this determined conflict is found in Professor Briggs’ recent address on the authority of the Holy Scriptures, delivered at his inaugural as Professor of Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary of New York. In this notable address he maintained that there were three great fountains of divine authority, the Bible, the Church, and Reason, any one of which was capable of leading persons to God. He instanced the following cases: Cardinal Newman was led to God through the Church of Rome; Spurgeon, through the Bible, and the philosopher Martineau through Reason. He further asserted “that no one could get at the Bible unless he forced his way through human obstacles, which he tabulated as follows: (1) Superstitious reverence for the book itself. (2) The belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. (3) The authenticity of the Scriptures. Traditions from the dead church assign authors to all the books of the Bible, but higher criticism pronounces these traditions fallacies and follies. (4) The doctrine of the inerrancy of the Bible. Historical criticism again pronounces that there are errors in the Bible, but they are in circumstantials, not in essentials. (5) The miracles are in violation of the laws of nature, and keep men away from the Bible. (6) The failure of minute prophecy.” Dr. Briggs further expressed belief in the ultimate salvation of mankind, declaring that redemption was not limited to this world, but continued through the vast period of time preceding the resurrection.

On page 55 of his revised address, he observes:

The Biblical redemption is a redemption of our race and of universal nature. As the ancient Jews limited redemption to Israel and overlooked the nations, so the Church limited redemption to those who were baptized, and excluded the heathen and unbaptized. The Presbyterians have too often limited redemption by their doctrine of election; the Bible knows no such limitation. The Bible teaches election, but an election of love. Loving only the elect, is earthly, human teaching. Electing men to salvation by the touch of Divine love—that is heavenly doctrine. The salvation of the world can only mean the world as a whole, compared with which the unredeemed will be so few and insignificant and evidently beyond the reach of redemption by their own act of rejecting it and hardening themselves against it, and by descending into such depths of demoniacal depravity that they will vanish from sight.

In the appendix to his address, published about the middle of May, in speaking of inerrancy, Dr. Briggs further observes:—

It is agreed that there are a large number of errors in the best MSS. of the Bible; it is the theory of modern dogmaticians, that they were not in the original MSS. We can never have them, and it is idle to speculate as to their contents. When the Lower or Textual Criticism has done its best, and secured the best possible text, dogmaticians discredit the best text when they speculate as to what was in the original text. If the reactionary dogmaticians may speculate to remove errors from the text, the rationalistic critics may also speculate with regard to the original text in a way that would make havoc with scholastic theology. Even Mohammed was willing to accept the original text of the Law and the Gospel, which he claimed had been falsified by Jews and Christians.

I said, “It is not a pleasant task to point out errors in the Sacred Scriptures.” In “Biblical Study,” and “Whither?” I limited myself to two errors of citation. I have not taken a brief to prove the errancy of Scripture. Conservative men should hesitate before they force the critics in self-defence to make a catalogue of errors in the Bible. The errors are in the only texts we have, and every one is forced to recognize them.

It is well known that the great reformers, Calvin and Luther, recognized errors in the Scriptures, that Baxter and Rutherford of the second Reformation were not disturbed by them, and that the choicest spirits of modern times—such as Van Oosterzee, Tholuck, Neander, Stier, Lange, and Dorner—have not hesitated to point out numerous errors in Holy Scripture. This view is maintained by Sanday, Driver, Cheyne, Davidson, Bruce, Gore, Marcus Dods, Blaikie, and numerous others in Great Britain; by Fisher, Thayer, Smythe, Evans, H. B. Smith, W. R. Harper, and hosts of others in this country.”

One can easily see how dangerously heretical such bold declarations would sound to patriarchs of conservatism like Rev. Dr. Shedd, the well-known author of Dogmatic Theology, which embraces thirteen hundred pages, but in the index of which one looks in vain for “forgiveness of sin” or “pardon of sin.” A work which devotes eighty-six pages to hell and only four to heaven. Dr. Briggs, however, claims that theologians like Dr. Shedd, whose teachings have been chiefly on the damnation of men not competent to judge him, and gauged by our present civilization he is doubtless correct, but by the standard of the theologians who framed the Westminster Confession, I have less confidence in his accuracy. It must be remembered, however, that Professor Briggs has exhaustively studied the lives and teachings of the framers of the Confession, and he may have been able at times to catch them at their best, when in moments of spiritual exaltation they have uttered grand prophetic and divinely loving utterances which were foreign to their usual habits of thought or the religious conviction of the age in which they lived. And in that event he may be able to maintain his position when his case is called before the synod, even against the popular impression as to the real meaning of the Confession. Failing in this, the only alternative will be recantation or withdrawal from the Presbyterian Communion. From the stand already taken it is impossible to imagine the professor stultifying himself and teaching what he does not believe; while his withdrawal will unquestionably mean the greatest schism that Presbyterianism has yet suffered. I think it highly probable that the majority of his brother ministers to-day will condemn¹¹ the bold, brave man whom his communion in the near future will revere as a man who, prophet-like, saw beyond the sect to which he belonged; whose noble, loving, and holy nature drew him into intimate relationship with the Divine life, which is the essence of Love.