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PRESBYTERY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the 
 
 United 
 
 States of America, 
 
 
 Jf 
 
 . AGAINST 
 
 The Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D. 
 
 ARGUMENT OF 
 
 REV. GEORGE W. F. "BIRCH, D.D.. 
 
 A Member of the Prosecuting Committee . 
 

PRESBYTERY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the 
 
 United 
 
 States of America, 
 
 
 against 
 
 The Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D. 
 
 ARGUMENT OF 
 
 V 
 
 REV. GEORGE W. F. BIRCH, D.D., 
 
 A Member of the Prosecuting Committee . 
 
PRESS OF 
 
 DOUGLAS TAYLOR 
 £ WARREN ST. 
 
 N, Y. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, Fathers and Brethren of this Vener¬ 
 able Court of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Presbytery 
 of New York : The opening plea of this case demands a 
 brief outline of its history. On Tuesday evening, January 
 20th, 1891, the Rev. Charles Augustus Briggs, D.D., was in¬ 
 augurated as the incumbent of the Edward Robinson Chair of 
 Biblical Theology in the Union Theological Seminary of New 
 York City. On that occasion he made and subscribed the fol¬ 
 lowing declaration: “ I believe the Scriptures of the Old and 
 New Testament to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule 
 of faith and practice, and I do now, in the presence of God and 
 the Directors of this Seminary, solemnly and sincerely receive 
 and adopt the Westminster Confession of Faith as containing 
 the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures. I do also 
 in like manner approve of the Presbyterian form of government; 
 and I do solemnly promise that I will not teach or inculcate 
 anything which shall appear to me to be subversive of the said 
 system of doctrines or of the said Form of Government as long 
 as I shall continue to be a professor in the Seminary.”* 
 
 The Inaugural Address which followed the utterance and 
 subscription of the pledge just recited, led the Presbytery of 
 New York, at its meeting on April 13th, 1891, to adopt the fol¬ 
 lowing paper: 
 
 “ Whereas, The Address of the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D. v 
 a member of this Presbytery, delivered on Tuesday evening, 
 January 20th, 1891, on the occasion of his inauguration as the 
 ‘ Incumbent of the Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical Theology,” 
 in the Union Theological Seminary (which Address has since been 
 published by said Seminary), has been very generally criticised 
 as containing statements which are seemingly contrary to the 
 teachings and spirit of our Confession of Faith; and 
 
 * Inaugural Address, Third Edition, page 10. 
 
4 
 
 IV/iereas, This Address has also been actually made the occa¬ 
 sion of complaint to the General Assembly by at least four 
 Presbyteries; therefore, 
 
 “ Resolved , That a Committee consisting of seven persons be 
 appointed, to which the said Address shall be referred for con¬ 
 sideration, with instructions to report at the meeting in May, 
 what action, if any, be appropriate in relation thereto.” 
 
 Whereupon the following Committee was appointed, viz. : 
 Rev. Messrs. George W. F. Birch, Henry Vandyke, Joseph J. 
 Lampe, Jesse F. Forbes and J. H. Mcllvaine, with Elders John 
 J. Stevenson and Walter Edwards.* 
 
 The Committee regretted to report the resignation of Dr. 
 Vandyke, who has requested me to state that he declined to 
 serve, on the ground of “ more important business.” 
 
 The report of this Committee adopted by the Presbytery at 
 its meeting on May 12th, 1891, recommended the judicial inves¬ 
 tigation of the case. Hence, in accordance with Section 11 of the 
 Book of Discipline, the Prosecuting Committee, from May 17th, 
 
 1891, to the present time, has discharged its task in pursuance of 
 a minute furnished by the Stated Clerk which states that its 
 work is “to arrange and prepare the necessary proceedings ap¬ 
 propriate to the case of Dr. Briggs.” The authority and the 
 rights of this Committee as an original party have been estab¬ 
 lished by the Court of Final Appeal, the General Assembly of 
 
 1892, in the very decree under which this Court is in present 
 session. After due consideration the Prosecuting Committee, 
 under a full sense of its responsibility to God, with a view to 
 the welfare of the Church and controlled by a desire to deal 
 justly and fairly by Dr. Briggs, has concluded to table the 
 charges and specifications which have been read in your hear¬ 
 ing. 
 
 The Court will observe, Mr. Moderator, that the Committee 
 has confined the charges and specifications to the Inaugural 
 Address. In a second edition published over his own name, 
 Dr. Briggs reaffirms every statement of the Inaugural in the 
 following emphatic manner: “I have seen nothing in the hos¬ 
 tile criticism to lead me to make any change whatever either in 
 
 * Record, page 24. 
 
5 
 
 the matter or the form of the address.”* The Court will remem¬ 
 ber that the re-affirmation was made subsequent to Dr. Briggs’ 
 answers to the categorical questions propounded by the direc¬ 
 tors of the Union Theological Seminary. 
 
 A word or two with respect to those categorical questions, 
 each of which, in my opinion, is answered in the very asKing of 
 the question. These questions, with Dr. Briggs’ “ Yes and 
 “ No ” appended, have been deemed by several a sufficient and 
 satisfactory explanation of the declarations of the Inaugural. 
 It will be remembered, however, that the substitute presented 
 by Dr. George Alexander, October 5th, 1891! (which was lost 
 and which was based on these categorical questions), was care¬ 
 ful to note that the Presbytery did not choose to pronounce 
 upon the sufficiency of those declarations to cover all the points 
 concerning which Dr. Briggs was called in question. Now, I 
 regard this substitute of Dr. George Alexander as an attempt 
 on the part of those who supported it to spring the categorical 
 catechism of the Union Seminary Board of Directors upon the 
 Presbytery as a finality. It was simply an interference in 
 judicial proceedings which the Presbytery had begun by a body 
 of men who are no Presbytery at all nor a Church Court of any 
 degree. Who authorized the Board of Directors to ask those 
 questions? Who gives authority or pertinence to either ques¬ 
 tions or answers? I think that the only thing the Presbytery 
 ought to have done was to have ruled those questions and 
 answers out of Court. Let us recall the precise position of 
 affairs. There were repeated and recent publications (especial¬ 
 ly the Inaugural Address), of views which are regarded by 
 many as variously and deeply unsound, as compromising our 
 whole system of theology, with the aggravation of coming from 
 a prominent professor in a Theological Seminary, with intima¬ 
 tions that these views are taught and are to be taught. Pri¬ 
 vately a party questions this professor. Are you unsound? Did 
 you say anything unsound? And he answers, “ No.” Clearly, 
 Mr. Moderator, this is a bit of by-play with which this Court 
 has nothing to do. It is not ad rent. The duty of our Commit- 
 
 * Inaugural, Third Edition, Preface, 
 f Record, pages (64-65). 
 
6 
 
 tee was to gather out of the Inaugural Address definite state¬ 
 ments of error and prove that these were published by Pro¬ 
 fessor Briggs. Then he should either recant with equal pub¬ 
 licity or be censured at the discretion of the Presbytery. 
 
 It may prevent confusion to note at this point the fact that 
 the only fountain of authority in this case is set forth in the 
 title-page of our Confession of Faith, which reads as follows: 
 “The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United 
 States of America, containing the Confession of Faith, the Cate¬ 
 chisms, and the Directory for the Worship of God, together with 
 the Plan of Government and Discipline, as ratified and adopted 
 by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia in the year of our 
 Lord 1788; and as amended in the years 1805-1888. 
 
 The authority for this title-page is found in the following 
 extract from the minutes of the Synod of New York and Phila¬ 
 delphia, dated May 29th, 1788: “And the Synod order that the 
 said Directory and Catechisms be printed and bound up in the 
 same volume with the Confession of Faith and the Form of 
 Government and Discipline, and that the whole be considered 
 as the standard of our doctrine, government, discipline, and 
 worship, agreeably to the resolutions of the Synod at their pres¬ 
 ent session. ” * 
 
 The framers of this Constitution endeavored to adapt the doc¬ 
 trine, government, and discipline of the Presbyterian Church of 
 Scotland to American institutions. Among the individuals who 
 were active in the work were Drs. Witherspoon, Rodgers, 
 Woodhull, McWhorter, Samuel Stanhope Smith, George Duf- 
 field and Ashbel Green. It is not difficult to reach a consensus 
 of interpretation of the Constitution on the part of the members 
 of the adopting Synod through their writings. The Assembly’s 
 Digest is our record of authoritative precedent. This fact is not 
 to be set aside by the interpretations which members of the 
 Westminster Assembly of Divines may have put upon the West¬ 
 minster Confession—by instances of ecclesiastical procedure in 
 the Church of Scotland. In the adjudication of this case the 
 recognized, the proper authorities are neither Anthony Burgess, 
 nor Edward Reynolds, nor John Arrowsmith, nor Robert Baylie, 
 
 * Records of Presbyterian Church, page 547. 
 
7 
 
 nor Samuel Rutherford, nor any other one of the makers of the 
 Westminster Confession. The adopting act of the Synod of 
 1729, in the present juncture, is history and not law. The rule 
 of law here is not the action of the Scottish Presbyteries in the 
 cases which gave birth to the Free Church of Scotland; or in 
 the trial of Robertson Smith. This Church Court must give 
 heed to the framers of our Constitution, even if the statement 
 be true (which personally I do not grant), which I read in that 
 well-known book called “Whither,” that they “were not noted 
 for their wisdom and ability. They were pious, excellent, prac¬ 
 tical men, but there was not one really eminent divine among 
 them. There was not one who could rank as a first-rate author¬ 
 ity in Biblical, historical, dogmatic or even practical theology. 
 They entirely set aside more than half of the work of the West¬ 
 minster divines. There is no reason to doubt that they would 
 have made a new Confession of Faith, if they had deemed it wise 
 to do so.”* And so they just arranged the Confession and the 
 Form of Government as they wished to. Notwithstanding the 
 departure from what I believe to be fact, with which this quota¬ 
 tion abounds—notwithstanding the misrepresentation of such 
 men as Drs. Witherspoon, Rodgers and Green—American Pres¬ 
 byterianism knows no fundamental law but that made by the 
 Fathers in 1788, and applied and amended by their successors. 
 To decide this case by any other would be as unreasonable as 
 for our Supreme Court at Washington to set aside, for the sake 
 of British precedent, the American Constitution, or for a court 
 in New York City to decide a case by the Code Napoleon. 
 
 Let this venerable court understand that the gravamen of the 
 charges and specifications reported by the Prosecuting Com¬ 
 mittee lies in the fact affirmed by the majority report of the Com¬ 
 mittee of Inquiry whose recommendation was adopted by the 
 Presbytery, April 13th, 1891. Announcing the result of a com¬ 
 parison of the Inaugural Address with the Westminster Con¬ 
 fession, the Committee of Inquiry declared that “ after making 
 due allowance for reasonable latitude of interpretation,” the 
 “Address does conflict with the Confession.” Indeed the 
 reason of the appointment of this Prosecuting Committee, was 
 
 * Briggs’ “ Whither,” pages 32-33. 
 
8 
 
 the conviction of the Presbytery that the “Inaugural Address/' 
 as to word, spirit and temper was a transgression of all reason¬ 
 able latitude of interpretation so unique as to demand judicial 
 investigation.* 
 
 It is one thing for a man to empty a minute blood-vessel, and 
 another to sever the principal artery or to cut the jugular vein; 
 one thing to have a bullet imbedded in the calf of the leg and 
 another to have it pierce the heart or the brain. It is one thing 
 in a building to cut a door here and to close up a window there, 
 and another to go down to the cellar and remove the main sup¬ 
 ports of the upper stories. Every system, whether material, 
 mental or moral, manifests the distinction between the inci¬ 
 dental and the vital. To lose, to remove or to forsake the for¬ 
 mer may occasion more or less inconvenience; it may be injury. 
 To lose, to remove or to forsake the latter means in every case 
 destruction. 
 
 We can conceive of no condition of the human system that 
 will permit the severance of the principal artery or jugular vein 
 —that will permit our neighbor to shoot us through the heart 
 or brain. Neither can we conceive of any reasonable latitude 
 of interpretation that will excuse Dr. Briggs’ teaching as set 
 forth in the Charges and Specifications. The proofs have been 
 and will be given that these teachings are a life stab—a life stroke 
 at the system of Bible Truth set forth in the Westminster Stand¬ 
 ards. These teachings strike away the foundation support on 
 which the Westminster symbols stand in their work for the 
 Church as the pillar and ground of the truth. Let me not be 
 understood as saying that the Presbyterian Church does not 
 bear with a great many departures from the Westminster 
 Standards; with a great many vagaries of her theological in¬ 
 structors, as there are those who care neither what they say nor 
 what they affirm. “A man,” one tells us, “ has been known to 
 get along with his arms and legs gone; without eyes; with a 
 part of his skull shot away; but it was an existence hardly 
 worthy of the name of life.” But when the death-dealing ball 
 is aimed at his heart, the question is not between life and death;, 
 it is life or death. 
 
 * Record, Page 32. 
 
9 
 
 No member of this Court will doubt that the Inaugural 
 Address deals with things vitally essential to not only the adop¬ 
 tion but the very existence of the Standards of the Presbyterian 
 Church. The opinion that its dealing with them is a contra¬ 
 diction of the Holy Scripture, which is the basis of those 
 Standards, and consequently a contradiction of the Standards 
 themselves, I am here to maintain with all my heart, soul, 
 strength and mind. 
 
 The attention of the Court is now invited to Charges I. and 
 II., which differ only in their subject and which require— 
 although distinct—for the most part a similar line of argument. 
 
 SOURCE OF AUTHORITY. 
 
 Charge I. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 
 charges the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., being a Minister of 
 the said Presbyterian Church and a member of the Presbytery 
 of New York, with teaching that the Reason is a fountain of 
 divine authority to such an extent that it may and does savingly 
 enlighten men, even such men as reject the Scriptures as the 
 authoritative proclamation of the will of God and reject also the 
 way of salvation through the mediation and sacrifice of the Son 
 of God as revealed therein; all of which is contrary to the 
 essential doctrine of the Holy Scripture, and of the Standards 
 of the said Church, that the Holy Scripture is most necessary, 
 and the rule of faith and practice. 
 
 Charge II. is as follows: 
 
 “ The Presbyterian Church in the United States of Ameiica 
 charges the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., being a Minister of 
 the said Presbyterian Church and a member of the Presbytery 
 of New York, with teaching that the Church is a fountain of 
 divine authority which, apart from the Holy Scripture, may and 
 does savingly enlighten men; which is contrary to the essential 
 doctrine of the Holy Scripture and of the Standards of the said 
 Church, that the Holy Scripture is most necessary and the rule 
 of faith and practice.” 
 
10 
 
 Unless requested I will omit the specifications under this 
 charge, as they have been printed. 
 
 If these charges be true, Dr. Briggs has pulled out of its 
 place the golden thread which God has woven into the Holy 
 Scripture and which the framers of our Constitution have 
 woven into the Standards of the Presbyterian Church. If these 
 charges be true, I ask, where stands the whole world of Evan¬ 
 gelical Christendom, to say nothing of our Presbyterianism? 
 What becomes of Chillingworth’s famous boast: “ The Bible— 
 the Bible is the only religion of Protestants ”? Professor Schaff, 
 of the Union Theological Seminary, in the preface to the Ameri¬ 
 can Edition of Lange’s Commentary on the New Testament, 
 writes: “The Bible is first and last a book of religion. It 
 presents the only true universal and absolute religion of God;”* 
 and in the “ Creeds of Christendom ” he writes thus concerning 
 the Westminster Confession’s Statement of the “ Divine inspi¬ 
 ration and “authority” of the Bible “and its sufficiency as 
 an infallible rule of faith and practice”: “ No other Protestant 
 symbol has such a clear, judicious, precise and exhaustive state¬ 
 ment of this fundamental article of Protestantism. ” f But 
 further, Dr. Henry B. Smith, another Professor of Union Theo¬ 
 logical Seminary, says in his sermon on “The Inspiration of the 
 Holy Scriptures ” (p. 3), “We are to adduce the evidence that 
 they (the original canonical Scriptures) are the word of God, and 
 as such an infallible and final authority for faith and life.” But 
 lastly, Rev. Dr. Murkland, of Baltimore, has told us, “One of 
 the most distinguished of the Roman Catholic prelates of this 
 country said to a friend of mine not long ago, ‘ There is one 
 Church that we.fear above all others, and that is the Presbyterian 
 Church, because we always know where to find it, and it meets 
 us at every point with an intelligent answer for its faith and the 
 Bible for its basis.’ If I were to call,” continues Dr. Murk- 
 land, “for testimony from another direction, I would call upon 
 the rampant infidelity of this age which dares to say (and I 
 glory in saying it) that the Church which it hates above all 
 others is the Presbyterian Church. Why is this? It is because 
 
 * Lange on Matthew, page 5 (Preface), 
 t Schaff’s Creeds of Christendom, Vol I., page 767. 
 
11 
 
 we stand on the historic confessions. The members of this 
 Court, Mr. Moderator, do not need to be told that the key-note 
 of this confessional chorus is the declaration which every Pres¬ 
 byterian minister affirms, as his ordination depends upon the 
 proper answer to the question, “ Do you believe the Scriptures 
 of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, the 
 only infallible rule of faith and practice?” 
 
 Specification I. brings to view the word which is a very prom¬ 
 inent one throughout this controversy. That term is the word 
 “fountain.” A fountain, * * according to Webster, is a 
 
 source from which anything is supplied continuously; origin; 
 first cause. And because a source it confers “ authority.” The 
 Presbyteries are the fountain of all our ecclesiastical authority. 
 Synods and Assemblies owe all their authority to the Presbyte¬ 
 ries. Our civil authority finds its fountain “in the people.” To 
 call the Church and Reason fountains of divine authority in mat¬ 
 ters of religious faith and worship is to affirm their authority 
 therein. If their authority be divine, and if by either of them a 
 man can find out God unto salvation apart from the Scriptures, 
 as Dr. Briggs teaches; if by the Church and Reason a man can 
 attain to the knowledge of God as a pardoning God, regener¬ 
 ating, justifying, sanctifying and saving the soul, and bringing 
 it through Divine Grace to glory and eternal life, the Holy 
 Scripture, instead of being “most necessary,” is only a super¬ 
 fluity. Therefore it is useless to say, as Dr. Briggs did in the 
 response to the charges and specifications preferred by the Pros¬ 
 ecuting Committee: 
 
 “ The Reason is a 4 great-fountain of divine authority,’ and 
 yet not an ‘ infallible rule of faith and practice.’ The Church is 
 a ‘ great fountain of divine authority,’ and yet not an 4 infallible 
 rule of faith and practice.’ 4 The Bible is a great fountain of 
 divine authority,’ and it is also 4 the only infallible rule of faith 
 and practice.’ Here are two different statements of truths that 
 may be embraced under a more general truth, but to affirm the 
 one, as to Bible, Church, and Reason, that 4 they are great 
 fountains of divine authority,’ is not to deny that the Bible is 
 the only one of which the other can be affirmed, namely, that 
 
12 
 
 4 the Scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. ’ ” 
 (Response, p. 20.) 
 
 For if these words be true, the 44 Church and Reason” are not 
 fallible in such a case, for if they confer on any man the sure 
 and certain knowledge of God unto salvation, they confer an 
 infallible knowledge, and the Scriptures can do no more. Hence, 
 there is no escape from the conclusion that the Inaugural 
 Address co-ordinates the Church and Reason with the Bible. It 
 is simply an evasion and a contradiction to say that the Church 
 and Reason are 44 fallible,” while insisting that they infallibly 
 lead a soul to eternal life apart from the Scriptures. 
 
 The whole argument of the 44 Inaugural Address ” is made in 
 the interest of this very view. Dr. Briggs assailed the inerrancy 
 and infallibility of the Scriptures, and assailing these he introduced 
 44 the Church and Reason ” as two additional fountains of Divine 
 Authority needed to give us that “certitude” which the errant 
 and fallible Scriptures could not give by themselves because 
 errant and fallible. It avails nothing to plead in the 44 Response ” 
 that of the three fountains of Divine Authority two are “fal¬ 
 lible” and one only “infallible,” viz. : the Scriptures. Necessity 
 is the mother of invention, and the quotation from the Response 
 seems to bean after thought. The original words and argument 
 cannot be thus explained away. For either the Church and the 
 Reason do not give us a sure and certain knowledge of God 
 unto salvation, in which case they are indeed 44 fallible ” and of 
 no authority in finding eternal life, or they do give us the sure 
 and certain knowledge of God unto salvation, in which case 
 they are 44 infallible” as the Scriptures themselves. Dr. Briggs 
 asserts that they do give men this sure and certain knowledge, 
 and adduces Cardinal Newman and Dr. James Martineau as 
 representative Christians, who thus found out God, Heaven and 
 Eternal Life apart from the Scriptures. It is simply unreason¬ 
 able to say in such a case that the Scriptures are the only infal¬ 
 lible rule of faith and practice. They are not. The denial of 
 44 infallibility ” to the 44 Divine Authority ” of the Church and 
 Reason, while yet they give to men a sure and certain knowledge 
 of God unto salvation, is a glaring contradiction, and is no plea 
 in abatement of the charges made in this case. 
 
 
13 
 
 I now invite the attention of the Court to the Scripture cited 
 which the statements set forth in the specifications contradict. 
 
 “ To the law and the testimony,” Isaiah viii. 20, if they (whether 
 it be Church or Reason) “ speak not according to this word it is 
 because there is no light in them. It is due to Dr. Briggs to 
 quote the words of the Response by which he so summarily dis¬ 
 misses this citation. 
 
 “ (0) Many texts are torn from their context. The first pas¬ 
 sage cited is from Isa. viii. 20. The passage is incorrectly trans¬ 
 lated in the version used, for the meaning ‘ there is no light 
 in them ’ is not justified. The revised version renders ‘ surely 
 there is no morning for them,’ they have no hope of a dawn of 
 brighter things. The proper rendering is: 
 
 ‘ When they say unto you, Seek unto the necromancers and 
 unto wizards; Ye chirpers and mutterers, should not a people 
 seek unto their God? On behalf of the living will they seek, unto 
 the dead for instruction and for testimony? If they say not so, 
 who have no dawn,’ etc. 
 
 This passage has no reference whatever to the Holy Script¬ 
 ures, or any part of them; but it is a rebuke of the people of 
 Judah for seeking necromancers and wizards, rather than the 
 
 living God.” (Response, pp. 30-31.) 
 
 Lange’s Commentary, prepared under the superintendence of 
 Professor Schaff, of the Union Theological Seminary, is diamet¬ 
 rically opposed to this statement of Dr. Briggs. In Lange’s 
 Isaiah, p. 138, we read, “ Now Isaiah refers his disciples to the 
 divine source of light and comfort which alone can keep them 
 upright in the impending evil days. Whoever does not find these 
 his support will undoubtedly be destroyed. Who shall say, to 
 the law and the testimony ” ? All that have no dawn. They are 
 such as nowhere see in any outward relations a ray of light that 
 announces the day of salvation. Where such see no inward com¬ 
 fort and support by means of God’s word, they wander oppressed 
 and hungry, &c.” Dr. Joseph Addison Alexander interprets as 
 follows: “ Instead of resorting to these unprofitable and forbid¬ 
 den sources, the disciples of Jehovah are instructed to resort to 
 the law and to the testimony (/. e ., to divine revelation consid¬ 
 ered as a system of belief and as a rule of duty), if they speak 
 
14 
 
 (/. e ., if any speak) not according to this word (another name 
 for the revealed will of God), it is he to whom there is no dawn ; or 
 morning (/. <?., no relief from the dark night of calamity). The 
 first clause is elliptical. None can speak inconsistently with 
 God’s word—or none can refuse to utter this word (viz., to 
 the law and to the testimony) but one whom God has aban¬ 
 doned. ” * 
 
 Thus we see that the citation from Isaiah is, if you please, a 
 defense of itself on the part of Holy Scripture, and it brings the 
 Church and Reason as presented in the Inaugural down to the 
 plane of the necromancers and wizards of Isaiah’s time. It 
 proves that there is no morning to those who abide in Newman’s 
 mediaeval darkness or in Martineau’s spiritual blindness. 
 
 Matthew io: (32-33). “32 Whosoever therefore shall confess 
 
 me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which 
 is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him 
 will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.” 
 
 Can any one, in view of the Christ of the Bible, think of James 
 Martineau’s denial of the doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the 
 Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection of the Body, the 
 personality of the Holy Ghost—of his rejection of the miracles 
 of the Bible—of his denial of the truth of Gospel narratives and 
 the most of the Theology of the Epistles, and call his attitude a 
 confession of Jesus Christ? The “ Every one,” therefore, of the 
 Greek (rendered in the authorized version whosoever) strikes 
 out the exception which the Inaugural Address makes in favor 
 
 of James Martineau. The Master thus hears witness to the truth 
 of Charge I. 
 
 It is in view of time and eternity, earth, heaven and hell, 
 human probation and human destiny, that Jesus Christ shows 
 that nothing can take the place of the Bible as the means of 
 salvation as He utters the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. 
 Abraham from the Church in heaven proclaims to the rich man 
 in hell, the all-sufficiency of the Holy Scripture for the knowl¬ 
 edge on the part of his brethren of what was involved in human 
 
 * 
 
 Alexander on Isaiah (abridgment), Vol. I., page 128. 
 
15 
 
 immortality in view of the future sufferings of the lost and of the 
 future joys of the saved, as appears from Luke 16: 29—31. 
 
 “29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the 
 prophets; let them hear them. 30 And he said, Nay, father 
 Abraham; but if one went unto them from the dead, they will 
 repent. 31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and 
 the prophets; neither will they be persuaded, though one rose 
 from the dead.” 
 
 The next citation is that familiar verse with which our Lord 
 meets the caviling Jews. 
 
 “ John v. 39 Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye 
 have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me. The 
 only difference between the Jews and our Lord with respect to 
 the Scriptures as the Fountain of Divine Authority lies in His 
 appeal to them as the Divine Authority with respect to Him¬ 
 self, and in their rejection of the voice of an authority which 
 they themselves acknowledged. Indeed the Book to whose 
 sceptre they bowed was claimed by Him as His witness. 
 
 The announcement of Christ as the way to the Father, as the 
 Truth with regard to the way, and as the Life which is the ani¬ 
 mating motive power of the way of Christ as the only way to the 
 Father, is the burden of the next citation. 
 
 “John xiv. 6. Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, 
 and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” 
 
 But the Inaugural teaches that Martineau does come to the 
 Father; finds God and divine certainty in another way than by 
 Christ, which recalls Tholuck’s remark quoted in Lange on 
 John, edited, revised and enlarged by Professor Schaff, “ And 
 so when a man is saved the Lord Christ must have a hand in the 
 work,” says Luther, rightly citing these words against Zwingli, 
 who makes a Theseus, a Socrates (the Inaugural Addiess 
 makes Martineau) to be saved even without Christ. But let us 
 listen to the beloved Disciple in 1 Johnv. 10. “He that believeth 
 on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth 
 not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the 
 record that God gave of his Son ;” teaching that to reject the Bible 
 (the record, the testimony which God hath given hath testified, 
 concerning his Son, or to substitute anything for it or even to 
 
16 
 
 put anything alongside of it, is to make God (who according to 
 the Westminster Confession is truth) a liar. The man who does 
 this, to quote Luther again, has told and even tells God to the 
 face, “Thou best.” Martineau declares that he does not believe 
 the record that God gave of his Son, and yet, according to Speci¬ 
 fication II., the Inaugural Address teaches that he found God 
 and rested on divine authority. It was to a company who mag¬ 
 nified the Church—the devotees of ritualism—that the Apostle 
 Paul spoke when he said (Galatians i: 9), “as we said before, so 
 say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you 
 than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” It needs no 
 argument, exposition or illustration of mine to add to the power 
 and solemnity of the fact that in this text the finger of God 
 touches the Inaugural’s doctrine (set forth in Specifications 1 , 2) 
 of the three-fold source of Divine Authority, and writes upon it 
 Anathema. But read 2 Tim. iii. 15 to 17. —15 And that from 
 a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to 
 make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ 
 Jesus. 16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
 profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 
 in righteousness: 17 That the man of God may be perfect, 
 thoroughly furnished unto all good works. And do we not find 
 that a minister of the Church, one of Paul’s theological students, 
 upon whom the great apostle pressed the importance of thorough 
 scholarship, is taught that the wisdom whose result is salvation, 
 that the Church’s system of doctrine, her standard of reproof, 
 her law of correction, her text book of instruction, her manual 
 of practical religion, is the Bible and the Bible alone. 
 
 The last Scriptural citation under Charge I. is: 
 
 2 Pet. i. 19. We have also a more sure word of prophecy 
 whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that 
 shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the.daystar 
 arise in your hearts. 
 
 2 Pet. i. 20, 21.—20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of 
 the Scripture is of any private interpretation, 21 For the proph¬ 
 ecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men 
 of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 Peter introduces this statement by calling attention to the 
 
17 
 
 Divine revelation to himself of the divinity, the glory, the office 
 work of the Lord Jesus Christ as his ear heard the voice and his 
 eye witnessed the glory of the transfiguration. As he speaks in 
 the name of God from the standpoint of the Transfiguration, he 
 is the representative of the Church. As he writes, “ No 
 prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation,” he 
 contemplates the standpoint of Reason, which reminds one of 
 the remark of Oliver Wendell Holmes that “ as iron is almost 
 never found in the earth pure, but usually in some combination, 
 as the sulphuret of iron, the oxide of iron, etc., so truth is sel¬ 
 dom found pure in human minds, but rather as the Jonesate of 
 truth, and the Brownsite of truth.” 
 
 The Apostle turns, however, from his oral testimony as a 
 representative of the Church, and from the Reason as it claims 
 to sit in judgment on the Bible, to the Bible itself as the foun¬ 
 tain of divine authority, in the citation already given.* 
 
 Peter had not died before he discerned the baleful influence of 
 false teachers. Hence, he was careful to devise a legacy to the 
 Church in this written testimony of the fundamental truths of 
 the gospel opposing to error the sure prophetic word of the Old 
 Testament, and the Apostolical eye and ear witness of Jesus 
 Christ in the New Testament. Had he not heard Jesus Christ 
 say, “ I am the Light of the World; he that followeth me shall 
 not walk in darkness ” ? Our Lord thus told us to take heed to 
 the light that shineth in a dark place, as the Bible Gospel is 
 the means by which he brings life and immortality to light. 
 When Peter’s beloved brother Paul wrote to the Philippians, 
 “Ye shine as lights in the world,” he spoke of those who take 
 heed unto the light that shineth in a dark place by holding forth 
 the word of life. No mariner ever ought to watch the lighthouse 
 more earnestly and faithfully than we life-voyagers, whether 
 sinners environed by the darkness of evil, or Christians with 
 sails set for heaven in the shadow of earth’s dark glass, should 
 take heed unto this written inspired Bible as unto a light that 
 shineth in a dark place. 
 
 In closing this exposition of Scripture, I propose to examine 
 
 * 2 Pet. i. 19-21. 
 
18 
 
 four Bible witnesses who have been summoned to the stand to 
 show the relations of the Bible, the Church and Reason. They 
 are the Ethiopian Eunuch, Cornelius, the Bereans and Apollos. 
 
 (a.) The Ethiopian Eunuch, Acts viii. 26-40. According to 
 Prof. Schaff this man was a heathen convert to Judaism. The 
 story of his conversion carries us through from the darkness of 
 human reason to Jesus Christ as the light of the soul, as starting 
 at heathenism under the guidance of Dr. Lyman Abbott, we 
 come to worship, “ from worship to the study of the Word, from 
 study to personal inquiry, from inquiry to acceptance. As Acts 
 8 (32-35) gives the place of the Scripture which he read, we have 
 the use of the Bible as the Fountain of Divine Authority. As the 
 text which was the subject of the Eunuch’s inquiry and Philip’s 
 preaching is a Bible revelation of the atonement,* it is evident that 
 Philip affirmed what James Martineau denies. The Eunuch lis¬ 
 tened as, with the key of the Gospel narrative, Philip unlocked 
 the Old Testament prophecy, and the seeking soul, enlightened, 
 convinced and exultant, found God and Divine certainty in the 
 Incarnation, Atonement, Resurrection of the Bible Jesus Christ 
 the Son of God. Evidently the Bible did for the Eunuch what 
 Church and Reason could not do. 
 
 (£.) Cornelius. This Roman, although a devout, praying, alms¬ 
 giving heathen whose ear was open to every voice of reason with 
 respect to the questions, “ What ami? Whose am I? Where 
 am I going?” had never been able to formulate the Inaugural’s 
 dream concerning Martineau. He never felt that God was 
 enthroned in his own soul. A voice from heaven told him that 
 Reason could never do Peter’s work, which was to tell him what 
 he ought to do. Peter told him by simply expounding the 
 Bible, and he found out that he ought to believe in Jesus Christ, 
 which involved his acceptance of the Incarnation, Bible Miracle, 
 Gospel Narrative, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Final Judgment,, 
 the cleansing, redeeming, sufficient Atonement. 
 
 Acts x. (34-43) 34 Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, 
 Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35 But 
 in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, 
 is accepted with him. 36 The word which God sent unto the 
 children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is the 
 
19 
 
 Lord of all:) 37 That word, I say, ye know, which was pub¬ 
 lished throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the 
 baptism, which John preached: 38 How God anointed Jesus of 
 Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about 
 doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; 
 for God was with him. 39 And we are witnesses of all things 
 which he did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem; 
 whom they slew and hanged on a tree: 40 Him God raised 
 up the third day, and shewed him openly: 41 Not to all the 
 
 people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, 
 who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead. 
 42 And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to 
 testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge 
 of quick and dead. 43 To him give all the prophets witness, 
 that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall re¬ 
 ceive remission of sins. 
 
 And when Luke records Peter’s story of the centurion’s con¬ 
 version it is as if inspiration had drawn the line of erasure 
 through the Inaugural’s statements with reference to Martineau. 
 When Peter opened his discourse with the words “Of a truth I 
 perceive that God is no respecter of persons,’’ he taught that this 
 Inaugural had no right to teach that God would do for James 
 Martineau that which he did not do for Cornelius, nor for the 
 Ethiopian Eunuch. If to fear God and work righteousness 
 would have saved Cornelius, what did God mean when he told 
 him to send for Peter? The capability of being saved (the 
 thing that Peter means) through Christ is one thing. The 
 fitness to be saved without Christ is another thing. The differen¬ 
 tiation here is not national; it is individual. The Bible does not 
 exclude James Martineau from the Evangelical Church because 
 he is an Englishman. It excludes him because he denies the 
 fundamental doctrines of the Gospel of the Son of God. It 
 excludes him because he depreciates the means of grace essential 
 to every one of us. This is the opinion of the average Christian 
 world, and hence it does not lift Martineau to the plane of 
 Spurgeon. If Martineau be a representative Christian, then the 
 praying and alms of Cornelius, his message to Peter, the 
 
20 
 
 preaching of the Apostle, and the joy of the Roman—it was all 
 a delusion.* 
 
 (r.) The Bereans, Acts xvii. 10-12. If ever inquiring men con¬ 
 fronted the Inaugural’s three fountains of authority, those per¬ 
 sons were the members of the Berean congregation of Paul and 
 Silas. There was the Bible that they searched daily. There was 
 the Church speaking in the Jewish dispensation through the 
 synagogue and speaking in the Christian dispensation through 
 Paul and Silas. There was Reason pointing to Olympus, the 
 shrine of the Father of gods and men, and speaking through the 
 philosophies of the day. In a time of reason and philosophers 
 and critics, these Bereans reasoned out of the Scriptures. And 
 Paul must have had them in his mind when he wrote to the 
 Thessalonians. 
 
 1 Thess. ii. 13. For this cause also thank we God without 
 ceasing, because, when ye received the Word of God which ye 
 heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is in 
 truth, the Word of God, which effectually worketh also in you 
 that believe. 
 
 And so Luke completes the syllogism with the sentence, 
 “Therefore many of them (the Jewish churchmen) believed: 
 also of honorable women which were Greeks and of men not a 
 few (Gentiles who, although they may have been proselytes, 
 were at some period of their lives disciples of reason). 
 
 (d.) Apollos, Acts xviii. 24-28. An Alexandrian Jew, he must 
 have acquired that familiarity with the processes of reason inci¬ 
 dent to birth and growth in a city famed for its achievements in 
 literature, philosophy and criticism, and for one of the greatest 
 libraries of the world. An Alexandrian Jew, he must have caught 
 the spirit of the circle that sent forth the Septuagint translation 
 of the Scriptures. The record warrants the opinion that he was 
 an expert in Biblical theology. The original gives us to under¬ 
 stand that he was a careful, exact, accurate, eloquent and 
 learned instructor in the things of the Lord. His lack did not 
 arise from his position in the Church, but from his want of the 
 whole Bible, for he knew only the baptism of John. The 
 Scripture history of John the Baptist proves, however, that this 
 
 * Lange on Acts, pages 204-205. 
 
21 
 
 Biblical Theologian never preached the Inaugural’s doctrines of 
 predicted prophecy and that the process of redemption from sin 
 was not completed in this life. If Apollos had been a member 
 of this court, I have reason to believe that he would have • 
 answered the call to a vote on Dr. George Alexander’s resolution 
 to strike out Charges IV. and VII. with a positive, superlative 
 John the Baptist No. 
 
 To which of the three, Bible, Church or Reason, did this 
 philosopher, critic, theologian, preacher point as the fountain 
 of divine authority? Certainly not to the Church, if we are to 
 believe John the Baptist’s estimate of the Church. Certainly 
 not to the Reason, because Reason failed him until it laid hold 
 of the postulates of the Bible under the teaching of Aquila and 
 Priscilla. The Bible stands out as the one only fountain of Divine 
 Authority as Apollos helped believers. “For he mightily con¬ 
 vinced the Jews or (Revised Version) powerfully confuted—or 
 (Dr. Edward Robinson) ‘ confuted utterly ’ or (Alford) ‘ argued 
 down,’ as we say, ‘proved it in their teeth,’ and that publicly 
 shewing by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ.” 
 
 The statements of the Standards, as cited, lead directly to the 
 conclusion that the place which the Inaugural assigns to Reason 
 is not the Confession’s subordination of Reason to the Bible. 
 The Confession teaches that it is the office of the Bible to help 
 the Reason to take hold of facts which the Reason of itself can¬ 
 not fathom, and by the Reason I mean the metaphysical cate¬ 
 gories, the conscience and the religious feeling. The Bible 
 describes several of the cardinal doctrines of the Gospel (among 
 them Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection of the 
 body) (which Martineau denies) as mysteries. It is the plan of sal¬ 
 vation to which Paul refers when he writes to Timothy. I. Timo¬ 
 thy, 3:16: “And without controversy great is the mystery of 
 godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the 
 spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on 
 in the world, received up into glory.” So that the mystery of 
 godliness, is Christ, who is God Incarnate. A Bible mystery 
 is properly defined as “ a revealed secret.” The resurrection, 
 the mutual relation of Christ and His Church, the Plan of Sal¬ 
 vation, the Incarnation, although mysteries, are essential facts 
 
22 
 
 which find their reason in the needs of the human race. What 
 does the Bible say about those needs ? The Epistles teach 
 that we are without God, strength, Christ and hope in the 
 world. We are dead in trespasses and in sins, in darkness and 
 under the power of Satan. Without the Resurrection our 
 faith is vain. Without the mutual relation of Christ and His 
 Church our Church relationship is a mere name. Without the 
 plan of salvation our redemption is impossible. Without 
 the Incarnation we have no Saviour. Although we cannot 
 reason out these mysteries, we can reason out from them as 
 the Bible declares them. The Inaugural Address seems to 
 forget that the revered teacher of its author, Prof. Henry 
 B. Smith, has said “Human reason may indeed inquire 
 whether the voice that speaks be delusive or divine; it 
 may test the truth of revelation on historical grounds; it may 
 ask whether its doctrines be in harmony with or contradictory 
 to moral truth, to our essential ideas and necessary convictions; 
 it may inquire whether the problems it proposes to solve be real 
 or imaginary; but, having answered such preliminary inquiries, 
 it has no shadow of a right to go to this revelation and dictate 
 to it what it shall tell us of God’s nature or what shall be the 
 method of the revelation or the redemption, any more than it 
 has a right to go to that other reality, Nature, and prescribe its 
 laws and limit its elements. In both cases man is to study and 
 to learn.”* 
 
 Notice the contrast between the spirit of the Inaugural and the 
 first chapter of Dr. Archibald Alexander’s Evidences of Christian¬ 
 ity, entitled ‘ ‘ The Right Use of Reason in Religion. ” “In receiv¬ 
 ing, therefore,” says Dr. Alexander, “the most mysterious doc¬ 
 trines of Revelation, the ultimate appeal is to reason, not to 
 determine whether she could have discovered these truths; not 
 to declare, whether considered in themselves, they appear prob¬ 
 able, but to decide whether it is not more reasonable to believe 
 what God speaks than to confide in our crude and feeble con¬ 
 ceptions. Just as if an unlearned man should hear an able 
 astronomer declare that the diurnal motion of the heaven is not 
 real, but only apparent; that the sun is nearer to the earth in 
 
 * Briggs’ Bible ChurcUand Reason (quotation), page 70. 
 
23 
 
 Winter than in Summer. Although the facts asserted appear to 
 contradict the senses, it would be reasonable to acquiesce in the 
 declarations made to him by one who understood the subject 
 and in whose veracity he had confidence. If, then, we receive 
 the witness of men in matters above our comprehension, much 
 more should we receive the witness of God, who knows all 
 things and cannot deceive his creatures by false declarations. 
 
 Therefore, I deny that the wilful depreciation of the means of 
 grace is less sinful in the case of James Martineau and his 
 school, whether its members be in England or America, than it 
 is in me; that the use of the means of grace is less essential in 
 James Martineau’s case than in mine. In this respect the 
 Inaugural Address is false to the Apostolic Commission. It 
 breathes the spirit of the Scotch Moderatism that used to perse¬ 
 cute Dr. Witherspoon, one of the framers both of our Church 
 and national constitutions. It follows in the wake of the Uni- 
 tarianism that leavened English Presbyterianism to its death in 
 the Eighteenth Century. It recalls the word of Samuel Hanson 
 Cox, one of the founders and long a director of the Union Theo¬ 
 logical Seminary, suggesting his description of an unsound 
 minister to John Quincy Adams, as its doctrines belong to the 
 “school of Cain ”; f that old founder of a religion without a 
 Saviour; as it commends James Martineau, who, according to 
 its statements, finds God without a mediator, an atonement and 
 an Advocate, with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous. The 
 Bible tells us, through the Apostle Jude, of “reasoning that has 
 gone in the way of Cain.” Certainly such reasoning is not in 
 the way of the Standards of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Looking up from what the school of highei ci iticism desig¬ 
 nates as the “ oipolloi" of scholarship, I would ventuie to assert 
 that James Martineau, great thinker as he is, could take a lesson 
 in logic from Charles Darwin. The latter, on June 5th, 1879, 
 addressed a letter to a young student in a German university, 
 whose mind had been unsettled by reading his books, which 
 reads as follows: 
 
 “ Sir,—I am very busy, and am an old man in delicate health 
 
 * Alexander’s Evidences of Christianity, page 11. 
 
 \ Dr. S. H. Cox’s Interviews, Memorable and Useful, page 239. 
 
I 
 
 24 
 
 and have not time to answer your questions fully, even assum¬ 
 ing that they are capable of being answered at all. Science and 
 Christ have nothing to do with each other except in as far as 
 scientific investigation makes a man cautious about accepting 
 any proofs. As far as I am concerned, I do not believe that any 
 revelation has ever been made. With regard to a future life 
 every one must draw his own conclusions from vague and con¬ 
 tradictory probabilities. Wishing you well, I remain your 
 obedient servant, Charles Darwin.” 
 
 This letter has been described as “unutterably sad.” The 
 fact set forth by Charge I. and its specifications makes the 
 Inaugural Address “unutterably sad.” 
 
 But Reason executes a perfect syllogism when it lays hold of 
 the Bible, and hence of its doctrines as a reasonable book. No 
 book is more rigid in its logic, or clearer in its conclusions. 
 Reason meets the Bible with two questions: Does God speak? 
 What does God say? Shut up to the acceptance of the evidences 
 of the Divine revelation, and analyzing the matter of that revela¬ 
 tion, “ Reason will convince any man, unless he be of a perverse 
 mind, that the Scripture is the Word of God; and then no 
 reason can be greater than this—therefore it is true. ”* Thus 
 Christ struck with dumbness the Pharisees and Scribes through 
 their own Scriptures. 
 
 So that we are shut up to the confessional statement that Holy 
 Scripture is most necessary. The Scripture citations show that 
 Isaiah viii. 6, taught that it is as necessary as light to the eye; 
 that Jesus Christ taught, (Matt. x. 32-33), that it is necessary 
 as a revelation of Himself in order to the confession of Himself; 
 that it is that necessary identical revelation (John v. 39); that 
 it is so necessary as to furnish our only chart for departure into 
 eternity (Luke xvi. 29-31); that it is necessary as a presentation 
 of the truth as it is in Jesus, as the only way to God the Father 
 (John xiv. 6). It is so necessary that to deny the record it gives 
 of Christ is to challenge God’s integrity (1 John v. 10); that the 
 Galatians were given to understand that no other Gospel could 
 take its place (Galatians i. 9); that it is the only manual of the 
 
 * Thirty Thousand Thoughts, page 263. 
 
25 
 
 Christian worker (2 Tim. iii. 16); that it is the day-dawn of 
 the day-star that guides us to heaven. And when the Scriptures 
 teach that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of 
 God,* they simply assert that the Holy Scripture is the rule of 
 faith and practice. So that if faith be necessary the Holy 
 Scripture is most necessary. 
 
 The “ Acts of the Apostles ” presents Paul more than once as 
 a reasoner when he preached the Gospel. His reasoning con¬ 
 cerning righteousness, temperance and judgment to come made 
 Felix tremble. His epistles abound in the logical, therefore. 
 God never reveals anything as true which contradicts any well- 
 authenticated truth of intuition, experience or previous revela¬ 
 tion. But this is not to assert that Reason is a fountain of 
 Divine Authority (Hebrews xi. 1). Faith is the substance of 
 things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Revised 
 Version: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the 
 proving of things not seen.” Thus Heaven itself declares that 
 Reason’s fountain of authority is the Word of God. 
 
 I pause here to consider the contradiction not only of the 
 Scriptures and of the Standards, but of every Confession of 
 Evangelical Christendom which is made by the last sentence of 
 Specification II. 
 
 “ Men are influenced by their temperaments and environments 
 which of the three ways of access to God they may pursue.” 
 
 Both the Scripture and the Standards assert that the Bible 
 presents but one subject, has but one message for every phase 
 of human temperament, for every sort of human environment, 
 and that is repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord 
 Jesus Christ. The subject of every miracle of healing performed 
 by our Lord in nearly every case had his or her own environ¬ 
 ment, yet in every case there was the same condition of healing, 
 “ If thou canst believe. ” The Twelve Apostles of the Lord meant 
 twelve peculiarities of temper; yet John wrote (I. John 2:1), “If 
 any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, 
 the Righteous.” This statement is a denial of the sovereignty of 
 Divine Grace, uproots the fact that justification is by faith alone, 
 contradicts the law of the work of sanctification and hinges the 
 
 * Romans, x. 17. 
 
26 
 
 possession of heaven on man’s good pleasure. I cannot imagine 
 how any one can read Romans vii. concerning Paul’s conflict, 
 Hebrews xii. concerning the weight and the easily-besetting sin 
 that interfere with the Christian race and not teach that the 
 Christian life is a battle with and a victory over human tempera¬ 
 ment and human environment. 
 
 Charge II. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 
 charges the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., being a minister of 
 the said Church and a member of the Presbytery of New York, 
 with teaching that the Church is a fountain of Divine Authority, 
 which, apart from the Holy Scripture, may and does savingly 
 enlighten men, which is contrary to the essential doctrine of the 
 Holy Scripture and of the Standards of the said Church, that 
 the Holy Scripture is most necessary and the rule of faith and 
 practice. 
 
 The examination of Charge I. necessarily anticipates much of 
 the proof of Charge II. The attention of the court is invited to 
 the Confessional citations which establish Charge II. In Chap¬ 
 ter I., Section i, the Church appears, not as a fountain of Divine 
 Authority, but as the receiver, preserver, propagator of that 
 which flows from the Scripture, the fountain of Divine Authority. 
 In Section V. the doctrine is that while the Church’s testimony 
 causes a “high and reverent esteem for the Holy Scripture, 
 yet the Holy Ghost alone can insure our full persuasion and 
 assurance of the infallible truth and Divine Authority thereof. 
 Section VI. shows that the completeness of the Scripture, as 
 “the whole counsel of God,” either expressly set down or 
 deducible by good and necessary consequence, excludes the 
 Church from doing the work of Scripture and compels the 
 Church even in those matters which are left to human judgment 
 to abide by its rules. Section VII. teaches that the Church 
 cannot take the place of the Scripture, which is the supreme 
 judge even of itself. 
 
 I' So that both Scripture and Standards teach that the Church 
 is subordinate to the Bible. Hence with the Bible as the 
 Church’s sole warrant—as that without which the Church cannot 
 
2? 
 
 fulfill its mission of gathering sinners into the fold of Christ 
 and of preparing saints for heaven; as that which so washes 
 away the Church’s earthliness, that the Church on earth becomes 
 the spotless, unblemished, unwrinkled, holy, glorious Church of 
 heaven, it is simply to twist logic clear out of shape into shapeless 
 fallacy, to teach that although a person may strive never so 
 hard he cannot obtain the knowledge essential to salvation 
 from the Bible, but is compelled to turn away from the Bible 
 and resort to the Church for said knowledge. And this too 
 in the face of Section IV. of Chapter I. of the Confession, which 
 
 says: 
 
 IV. “ The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought 
 to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of 
 any man or church, but wholly upon God, (who is truth itself), 
 the author thereof, and therefore it is to be received, because it 
 
 is the word of God.” 
 
 True, the Church may bear witness to the Scripture just as it 
 has been said, “A subject may bear witness to the identity of an 
 heir to the crown, but the authority of the Scripture is no more 
 derived from the Church than that of the king from the subject 
 who proves that he is the legal heir. ” * Institutional Christianity is 
 the presence chamber of God to no man until the Bible which 
 makes the institution is in it. I turn from the Inaugural s Car¬ 
 dinal Newman to another famous churchman, the poet Dante, 
 who evidently had an exact comprehension of the relation of 
 the Church and Bible: 
 
 “ Christ said not to his first conventicle: 
 
 Go forth and preach imposture to the world. 
 
 But gave them truth to build on, and the sound was mighty on their 
 lips; nor needed they 
 Beside the Gospel other spear or shield, 
 
 To aid them in their warfare for the truth.” 
 
 The Inaugural certainly asserts that Spurgeon’s position in the 
 Kingdom of God is based on the immovable rock of the Divine 
 Word. It certainly distinguishes the position of Newman from 
 that of Spurgeon as it is based upon the perversion of Christ’s 
 word to Peter, as in the Papal Hierarchy Peter s person eliminates 
 
 * A. A. Hodge’s Commentary on the Confession of Faith, pages 57-58 
 
28 
 
 Peter’s confession. I challenge the Inaugural’s statement that 
 the average opinion of the Christian world would not assign him 
 (Spurgeon) a higher place in the Kingdom of God than Cardi¬ 
 nal Newman. I believe that I voice the sentiment of the aver¬ 
 age Christian world when I say that I think he has a higher place 
 in the Kingdom of God than Cardinal Newman. And further 
 I believe that I voice the sentiment of the average Christian 
 world when I say that Spurgeon fought a good fight, warred a 
 good warfare, when he, holding according to the Inaugural the 
 “ Protestant position,” assailed “the Church and the Reason in 
 the interest of the authority of Scripture.” 
 
 Skepticism and credulity have been called twin sisters. 
 Charges I. and II. have shown that Dr. Briggs has attacked the 
 authority of the Bible in the interest of the Reason and the 
 Church, as exhibited in the skepticism of Martineau and the 
 credulity of Newman. Having attacked the authority of the 
 Bible, there was no escape from that impugnment of its trust¬ 
 worthiness which is made the ground of Charge III. 
 
 INSPIRA TION. 
 
 Charge III. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 
 charges the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., being a Minister of 
 the said Presbyterian Church and a member of the Presbytery 
 of New York, with teaching that errors may have existed in the 
 original text of the Holy Scripture, as it came from its authors, 
 which is contrary to the essential doctrine taught in the Holy 
 Scripture and in the Standards of the said Church, that the 
 Holy Scripture is the Word of God written, immediately in¬ 
 spired, and the rule of faith and practice. 
 
 I will not read the specifications and proofs, unless called for. 
 
 Thus the Scriptures affirm the authenticity, the letter, the in¬ 
 spiration, the inerrancy, the infallibility, the unity, the accu- 
 racy, the truthfulness of God’s WUrd written. The language 
 not only of the law but of the messages of the prophets is em¬ 
 phasized in Zechariah vii. 12. 
 
29 
 
 i2. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest 
 they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts 
 hath sent in his Spirit by the former prophets; therefore came a 
 great wrath from the Lord of hosts. 
 
 The term here rendered “words” is the plural of the noun de¬ 
 rived from the verb ( dabar ), which according to Gesenius’ Lexi¬ 
 con, edited by Dr. Edward Robinson,* primarily signifies to set 
 in a row, to range in order, to lead, to guide, to drive, to follow, 
 be behind, and from the primary idea of ranging in order, con¬ 
 necting, comes also, the most frequent signification of this verb 
 to speak, properly to set in order words, referring undoubtedly 
 to the letters, which constitute the syllables and to the syllables 
 which constitute the words, and to the words which constitute 
 the sentences. Our Lord refers to the written Pentateuch in 
 Mark vii. 13, when He charges the Pharisees and Scribes with 
 “making the Word of God of none effect through your tradi¬ 
 tion, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do 
 ye.” 
 
 Commenting on the parallel passage in Matthew xv. Alford 
 considers this a remarkable testimony of our Lord to the divine 
 origin of the Mosaic law: not merely of the Decalogue, for the 
 second command quoted is not in the Decalogue, and it is to be 
 observed that where Matthew has 0 theos eneteilato (God said) 
 Mark (7:10.) has “Mousees ripen ,” Moses said: f 
 
 Let this Court observe how our Lord grasps the point of the 
 question at issue, which is the question at issue in this case. 
 He shows that the Pharisees and Scribes substituted their writ¬ 
 ten tradition for the written word of God. In Geike’s Life of 
 Christ, we read that “ Pie who expounds the Scriptures in 
 opposition to the tradition,” says Rabbi Eleazar, “ has no share 
 in the world to come.” “It was perhaps good to give one’s 
 self to the reading of the Scripture, but he who reads diligently 
 the traditions receives a reward from God, and he who gives 
 himself to the commentaries on these traditions has the greatest 
 reward of all.” “ The Bible was like water, the traditions like 
 wine, the commentaries on them like spiced wine.” “ My 
 
 * Gesenius Hebrew Lexicon, Edited by Dr. Edward Robinson, pages 210-211. 
 f Alford’s Greek Testament, Vol. I., page 162. 
 
/ 
 
 30 
 
 
 Son,” says the Talmud, “give more heed to the rabbis than 
 to the Words of the law.” * 
 
 Let the Court notice the specification under Charge III. If 
 it means anything it shows that the scholarly critics of Christ’s 
 day did no more with their tradition than some modern scholars 
 (I have seen a roll in a book entitled “ The Bible, Church and 
 Reason,” which contains 145 names) do with the higher criti¬ 
 cism as represented by the Inaugural. Indeed the specification 
 shows that this Higher Criticism uses precisely the same pro¬ 
 cesses which Christ rebukes in the citations from Mark vii. 
 The Inaugural itself teaches that the thought of an inerrant 
 original text is sheer assumption on which no mind can rest with 
 certainty—declares that if an errant original text destroys the 
 authority of the Bible, it is already destroyed for historians— 
 ridicules the theory of an inerrant bible as “a ghost of modern 
 Evangelicalism, to frighten children ”—asserts that Historical 
 Criticism actually points out errors, asserts that these errors are 
 all in the circumstantials and not in the essentials, and suspends 
 the fact of God’s providential superintendence on its author’s 
 maybe . In view of the Bible and the Standards, this court can do 
 nothing else than relegate the Inaugural to that tradition classi¬ 
 fied by Christ as making the word of God of non-effect. For the 
 Higher Criticism exhibits itself in the Inaugural as at the behest 
 and in the interests of that traditionalism of the olden time with 
 which Jesus Christ contended during his earthly ministry. 
 
 The first and second chapters of the Epistles to the Romans 
 leave Jew and Gentile alike subject to the law of God, alike 
 under sin and condemnation. This conclusion opens the third 
 chapter with a question and answer which simply make Charge 
 III. luminous. Romans 3: 1-2. 1 What advantage then hath 
 
 the Jew, or what profit is there of circumcision ? 2 Much every 
 
 way; chiefly, because that unto them were committed the 
 oracles of God. 
 
 If the Jew be no better than the Gentile he might well ask, in 
 view of his past history, wherein he was better off than the Gen¬ 
 tile. Paul shows the point of differentiation, as he writes ‘ ‘ much. 
 
 *Geike’s Life of Christ, Vol. II., page 206 (Appleton’s Edition). 
 
31 
 
 every way;” chiefly because that unto them were committed 
 (entrusted) the oracles of God, which means the Old Testa¬ 
 ment Scriptures as we have them. But the immediate relation 
 of these verses to this discussion hinges on the term oracle. 
 Besides Paul in this place, the protomartyr Stephen, designates 
 the writings of Moses (Acts 7, 38), the Apostle Peter makes 
 mention of the Scriptures which are to be the standard of 
 speech (1 Peter, 4: 11), the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews 
 (Heb. 5:12) refers to the text book of the Christian teacher by 
 the word oracle, Stephen calling them the lively oracles, and 
 the other two designating them the oracles of God . The fact that 
 Paul was a Greek scholar, Stephen a Hellenistic Jew, and that 
 Peter wrote at a time when Greece gave tone to the expression of 
 thought, will show that, what the oracle was to the ancient 
 Greek, so, according to the inspired Paul, the inspired Stephen 
 (along with his reporter, the inspired Luke) and the inspired 
 Peter, was the Bible to be to every son and daughter of Adam. 
 
 Now, if the Grecian oracle emphasized anything, it was the 
 speech, the utterance, the words, the language of an authority 
 which was divine, an idea to which poetry has given expression. 
 
 “ O where Dodona! is thine ancient grove? 
 
 Prophetic fount and oracle divine? 
 
 What valley echoed the response of Jove? 
 
 What trace remaineth of the Thunderer’s Shrine?” 
 
 The Holy Ghost intended the popular meaning of the word 
 when He called the Bible an oracle, and that it was the voice of 
 Divine Authority is clearly apparent from the following, found 
 in Grote’s “History of Greece,” Volume II., pages 255-256. 
 
 Volume II. (Pages 255-256): “ Delphi and Dodona appear in 
 the most ancient circumstances of Greece as universally vener¬ 
 ated oracles and sanctuaries; and Delphi not only receives hon¬ 
 ors and donations, but also answers questions from Lydians, 
 Phrygians, Etruscans, Romans, &c. It is not exclusively Hel¬ 
 lenic. One of the valuable services which a Greek looked for 
 from this and other great religious establishments was, that it 
 should resolve his doubts in cases of perplexity, that it should 
 advise him whether to begin anew or to persist in an old project, 
 that it should foretell what would be his fate under given cir- 
 
32 
 
 •cumstances and inform him if suffering under distress on what 
 condition the gods would grant him relief. We shall have con¬ 
 stant occasion to notice in this history with what complete faith 
 both the question was put and the answer was treasured up— 
 what serious influence it often exercised both upon public and 
 private proceeding. This habit of consulting the oracle formed 
 part of the general tendency of the Greek mind to undertake 
 no enterprise without having first ascertained how the gods 
 viewed it and what measures they were likely to take. To sacri¬ 
 fice with a view to this or that undertaking, or to consult the 
 oracle with the same view, are familiar expressions embodied in 
 the language. Nor could any man set about a scheme with 
 comfort until he had satisfied himself in some manner or other 
 that the gods were favorable to it. The disposition here ad¬ 
 verted to is one of those mental analogies pervading the whole 
 Hellenic nation, which Herodotus indicates. And the common 
 habit among all Greeks, of respectfully listening to the oracle 
 of Delphi, will be found on many occasions useful in maintain¬ 
 ing unanimity among men not accustomed to obey the same 
 political superior.” 
 
 Grote’s History of Greece, Vol. IV., pages 405-409, gives a 
 vivid narration of the efforts of the Athenians to interpret the 
 utterances of the Delphian oracle at the time of the invasion 
 of Xerxes. 
 
 No wonder, then, that Paul, Stephen, Luke and Peter called 
 the Scriptures the oracles of God, for if the Grecian oracle was 
 autocratic authority in the conception of every Greek, there is 
 no higher law, no co-equal authority with the Bible’s “Thus 
 saith the Lord,” which is God's word written . If the Grecian 
 oracle was the centre of Hellenistic Unity, so this Bible is the 
 centre of humanity’s thought concerning its relation to God, 
 whether ecclesiastical or rational. Dr. Schaff appropriately 
 says (Lange on Romans, 3, 2, page 116): “The Apostle, in 
 calling the Old Testament Scriptures the oracles of God, clearly 
 recognizes them as divinely inspired books. The Jewish Church 
 was the trustee and guardian of these oracles, till the Coming 
 of Christ. Now the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments 
 are entrusted to the guardianship of the Christian Church.” The 
 
33 
 
 last two clauses of this quotation are very significant in the 
 light of the present discussion. If the Church be the trustee 
 and guardian of the Bible it can only discharge that trust, or 
 do its work as guardian as it preserves and defends the letter of 
 the Word of God. The instructors who subscribe to the 
 doctrine of the Inaugural Address might do well to consider 
 Hebrews 5:12: ‘ For when for the time ye ought to be teachers 
 ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first 
 principles of the oracles of God.’ ” 
 
 There is a categorical statement of verbal inspiration in 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 12, 14.—13 Which things also we speak, not in the 
 words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost 
 teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 
 
 So that while Bible inspiration is verbal inspiration, yet that 
 inspiration is not merely mechanical. The Bible writers were 
 not machines. No sane man thinks himself a machine. His 
 free-agency will assert itself. You know that while man is not 
 a machine, God controls his thoughts. Why should He not 
 control his language? The meaning is that your Bible is what 
 it is as to form of word, because God the Holy Ghost deter¬ 
 mined that it should be so. 
 
 When Paul wrote to the Galatians: 
 
 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the 
 heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abra¬ 
 ham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed, 
 he simply based the doctrine of justification by faith on the 
 Scripture—the writing, the letter—the verbal inspiration of 
 Genesis 12: 1-3. 
 
 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy 
 country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, 
 unto a land that I will shew thee: 
 
 2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless 
 thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 
 
 3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that 
 curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be 
 blessed. 
 
 And Gen. 18:17-19. 
 
34 
 
 17 And the Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing 
 which I do: 
 
 18 Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and 
 mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed 
 in him? 
 
 19 For I know him that he will command his children and his 
 household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, 
 to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon 
 Abraham that which he hath spoken of him. 
 
 The direct connection of the Holy Ghost with the language of 
 Scripture is positively asserted in 2 Pet. i. (20-21): 
 
 20 Knowing this first that no prophecy of the Scripture is of 
 any private iuterpretation. 
 
 21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; 
 but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 Alford declares the sense to be that “ prophecy springs not out 
 of human interpretation ,” i. e. f is not a prognostication made by a 
 man who knows what he means when he utters it, “ but, &c.” * 
 Or it may be explained by saying that no prophecy is of any 
 man’s individual interpretation of the mind of God respecting 
 the future. The genesis of prophecy is not psychological. 
 Prophecy is of Divine origin and, therefore, not a shrewd guess, 
 nor uncertain, nor fallible. 
 
 The closing Scripture citation to sustain Charge III. is 
 
 2 Tim. iii. 16. All Scripture is given by inspiratiou of God, 
 and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for 
 instruction in righteousness. 
 
 The rendering of the Revised Version, “Every Scripture 
 inspired of God,” is alike with the rendering of the Authorized 
 Version an affirmation of God’s Word written. The imme¬ 
 diate reference is undoubtedly to the Holy Scriptures, to the Old 
 Testament which Timothy had known from a child. 
 
 At the same time that the Revised Version of the text is 
 incorrect is evident from the following summary of evidence: 
 (1) The revisers condemned their own version by putting the 
 
 * Alford’s Greek Testament, Vol. IV., page 401. 
 
35 
 
 authorized text in the margin, for certainly “All Scripture is 
 given by inspiration of God” is not the equivalent of “every 
 Scripture inspired of God.” (2) The Greek Fathers, whose 
 knowledge of the original language of the New Testament must 
 be granted, set their seal to the Authorized Version, as we 
 may learn from such men as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, 
 Gregory of Nyssa, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Basil, Cyril. (3) The 
 peers of the best scholars of modern times refuse to give up 
 the Authorized Version, among others Bishops Moberly, 
 Wordsworth and Archbishop Trench of the Revision Committee, 
 Dean Burgon, Dr. Scribner and Dr. Tregelles. The Revised 
 Version according to Dean Burgon is “ a calamitous literary 
 blunder,” and according to Dr. Scrivener “ a blunder such as 
 makes itself hopelessly condemned.”* 
 
 As to the confessional testimony to Charge III., the Court will 
 notice that in Chapter I., as Section I. teaches that the Lord com¬ 
 mitted the Bible to writing,as Section II. styles the Bible the Word 
 of God written ; calls by name the 66 books of the Old and New 
 Testaments, affirming that they are our inspired rule of faith 
 and practice, as Section IV. declares that God, the author, is 
 truth itself, a doctrine is proclaimed concerning the “ Word of 
 God written,” which is not found in the Inaugural, and espe¬ 
 cially in the Specification under Charge III. When the author 
 of the Inaugural ventures to affirm that there are errors in the 
 Scriptures, he ventures to contradict the a priori universal neces¬ 
 sary prime postulate that God cannot lie. If the 66 books are 
 inspired, the distinction which the author of the Inaugural makes 
 between what he, by private interpreration, calls the essential 
 and the circumstantial, involves the supposition that inspiration 
 makes the Holy Ghost an active or a silent partner in a lie. We 
 can only give up the circumstantial of Scripture so summarily 
 ruled out by the Inaugural when we lose confidence in the Lord 
 Jesus Christ’s truthfulness. Every historical statement of the 
 Bible is a chain of circumstances. I cannot look upon such a 
 partial limited theory of inspiration without propounding the 
 inquiry: 
 
 Where does this line of argument place the author of the 
 
 * Highest Critics (Munhall), pages 24-27. 
 
36 
 
 Inaugural Address? I answer (i) He has subscribed to the Con¬ 
 fession which names the 66 books of the Old and New Testa¬ 
 ments as inspired of God. (2) He has declared that the Bible 
 is not inerrant but errant. (3) He has declared that the errors 
 are not merely by literary transcription, but the result of 
 original composition. These propositions cannot be turned aside 
 from the conclusion that inspiration does not necessarily 
 guarantee inerrancy , 1. e ., the whole Bible is inspired by the 
 Holy Ghost, but a part of it is untrue. Such is not the 
 deliverance of the last General Assembly. 
 
 This Bible is God’s book. God is the thinker of its thought. 
 And as language is the expression, the manifestation, not the 
 mere dress of thought, God is the arranger of its clauses, the 
 chooser of its terms and the speller of its words, so that the text, 
 in its letters, words or clauses, is just as divine as the thought. 
 There is a pretty general agreement with reference to the Bible 
 as to its divine idea. The divergence commences as to the 
 Bible’s divine speech. And while I insist on its divine speech, 
 
 I at the same time insist on my denial of the mechanical theory 
 of inspiration. I want to draw an illustration from the title 
 deed of a piece of property and from the chart of navigation. To 
 discover the intention of the grantor of a deed of conveyance no 
 one thinks of ignoring what the document says. The witnesses 
 to the deed will only testify that they signed what is there writ¬ 
 ten. The navigator’s chart simply prints, if you please, the fact 
 which the coast surveyor’s mind apprehended, and the rock must 
 remain hidden to the mariner unless the point on the chart indi¬ 
 cates its locality. Hence, to assert that in the Bible God does 
 not tell us what he thinks is to say that the grantor of a title 
 deed can satisfy the grantee with a sheet of white paper, or that 
 a coast surveyor can give the mariner the result of his work 
 without a chart. Thus common sense dissolves into utter 
 nothingness the assumption that the inspiration of the Bible is 
 confined to the concept, which really means the same thing as the 
 terms, notion, idea, purpose. But let the Bible speak for itself. 
 From Genesis to Revelation it springs to the defense of its 
 divine words. Our Bible term “Scripture” is Kethab in the 
 
37 
 
 original Hebrew and graphee (noun) from grapho (verb) in the 
 original Greek. 
 
 I think it very fortunate, Mr. Moderator, that in determining 
 the significance of the Hebrew and Greek terms rendered into 
 English by the word Scripture we can consult as our authority 
 one whom not only Union Seminary, but the Christian world 
 loves to honor, and whose name has been given to the Chair 
 whose institution was the occasion of the Inaugural. I refer to 
 Dr. Edward Robinson, the editor of the Hebrew Lexicon of 
 Gesenius and of a Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testa¬ 
 ment. Dr. Robinson designated the philological works of Gese¬ 
 nius as a specimen of what may be termed the historico-logical 
 method of lexicography, which first investigates the primary 
 and native signification of a word, and then deduces from it in 
 logical order the subordinate meanings and shades of sense, as 
 found in various constructions and in the usage of different ages 
 and writers, which in short presents a logical and historical view 
 of each word in all its varieties of signification and construction.* 
 “ This, ” says Dr. Robinson, ‘ ‘ is doubtless the only true method. ” 
 Now, Gesenius’ Lexicon, edited by Dr. Robinson, “Ke.thab,” 
 in Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, Syriac, Samaritan, means to write. 
 Ethiopic letter book. The primary idea is to cut into, grave, 
 since the earliest writing was probably graven on stones. To 
 write, Ezra 4:7, referring to the letter which the enemies of the 
 Jews wrote to Artaxerxes. To write words, discourses, Deuter¬ 
 onomy 10:2, as Moses tells the story of the tables of stone, 
 Deuteronomy, 17:18, where the King was to write him a copy 
 of the law. To write a book or record, Exodus, 32:32: as 
 Moses speaks of the Book that God has written, II. Samuel, 
 11:14. The letter that David wrote Joab, concerning Uriah, 
 the Hittite Job, 31:35. That word of Job, which is one of our 
 most familiar proverbs, “That mine adversary had written a 
 book,” Jeremiah, 36:27. Jeremiah’s celebrated roll, which 
 Jehudi cut with his penknife, ip) The material or book upon 
 which one writes. Chron. 20:29; the acts of David, as written 
 in the books of the seers, Samuel, God and Nathan, the prophet. 
 To inscribe, Isaiah, 44:5. “Another shall subscribe with his 
 
 * Gesenius’ Hebrew Lexicon (Robinson), Preface, page 4. 
 
38 
 
 hand unto the Lord,” in allusion to the ancient custom by which 
 servants bore the names of their masters; “ soldiers, those of 
 their generals; idolators, those of their idols, cut or burnt in 
 upon the forehead, hand, wrist.” (c) The instrument, stylus, 
 in connection, Is. 8:1. “ Take thee a great roll and write in 
 
 it with a man’s pen, concerning Maher-shalal-hash-baz. (d) 
 Connected with the person to or for whom one writes, II. Kings, 
 io ; 6. Jehu’s letter to the rulers of Samaria, concerning Ahab’s 
 seventy sons. ( e) To write of or concerning any one, Ps. 4 o: 7 - 
 “ In the volume of the book it is written of me.” 
 
 (2) To write down. Neh. 33:2. “And Moses wrote their 
 
 goings out according to their journe) T s. 
 
 (3) To write up, to inscribe in a register. Ps. 87:6. “The 
 Lord shall count when he writeth up the people that this man 
 was born there. ” 
 
 (4) To write about, to describe. Joshua 18:4, 6, 8. The 
 survey commanded by Joshua. The Domesday Book. 
 
 (5) To write or record a sentence, edict or decree. Isaiah 
 
 65:6. “It is written before me. ” 
 
 (6) To write or record a law, to prescribe. II. Kings 22: 13. 
 
 Josiah and the law. 
 
 Under the noun we have the definition, a document, book, 
 Dan. 10:21. The Book of Truth in which God’s decrees are 
 
 written.* 
 
 Now when we come to the New Testament we should bear in 
 mind the statement of Dr. Robinson in the preface to his Lexi¬ 
 
 con, that the New Testament was written by Hebrews, aim¬ 
 ing to express Hebrew thoughts, conceptions, feelings, in the 
 Greek tongue.”f In that Lexicon we read that the verb grapho 
 means (1) to write, to form letters, which was usually done with 
 a stylus, so that the letters were graven or scratched upon the 
 material. II. Thessalonians 3:17. “The salutation of Paul with 
 mine own hand which is the token in every epistle: so I write,” 
 
 i, e., “this is my handwriting.” 
 
 (2) To write down anything. John 20:30-31. 
 written,” &c., declarations, promises, prophecies. 
 
 “ These are 
 I. Cor. 10:11. 
 
 * Gesenius’ Hebrew Lexicon (Robinson), pages (495 49 D- 
 f Robinson’s Lexicon of the New 1 estament, Preface, page 6. 
 
39 
 
 ‘‘Now all these things. . . . are written for our admonition, 
 &c. Here belong the formulas of quotation from the Old Testa¬ 
 ment. To prepare in writing. Matt. 27:37. The superscrip¬ 
 tion of the Cross. 
 
 (3) To write to any one. II. Pet. 3:15. “ Our beloved Paul 
 
 according to the wisdom given unto him (the concept), hath 
 written unto you.” Very frequent in the Epistles. The noun 
 graphee , a writing, is the Greek word for our English terms 
 Scripture, the noun gramma being rendered so but once. II. 
 Timothy 3:15. * 
 
 So says Dr. Edward Robinson, and I have found nothing in 
 the analytical Hebrew and analytical Greek Lexicons, published 
 by the Bagsters, to modify or change his statements. 
 
 Now all this proves nothing if it does not show that it is God’s 
 mind that we should subscribe to the divinity of the letter no 
 less than the thought of the Bible. In this sense, the Bible as a 
 book is something more than mere print, as its words tell the 
 story of Redemption—as its words are not such a development 
 of the Hebrew and Greek into German and English, as to 
 destroy the significance of the original tongues. 
 
 So that Paul wrote to Timothy, “From a child thou hast 
 known the Holy Writ.” Jesus stands up in the synagogue of 
 Nazareth and reads the words of Isaiah to say, “This day is 
 this writing fulfilled in your ears.” Jesus explained the mean¬ 
 ing of the words of Moses, of the prophets and of the Psalms 
 when he opened to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus the 
 writings: “Search the writings,” says the Man of Nazareth 
 to the caviling Jews. “All the writings,” says Paul, “are 
 given by inspiration of God.” A somewhat celebrated Scripture 
 student has remarked “ that the whole Epistle to the Romans 
 turns on the meaning of a single word (dikaiosunee) righteous¬ 
 ness, whose definition is given in Romans 3:25-26, and that 
 there are five thousand instances in both the Old and New 
 Testaments where most important distinctions hang upon the 
 choice of a word, and even upon the delicate shading of 
 meaning which distinguishes two words.” 
 
 Dr. Vincent says that a thorough comprehension of Scripture 
 
 * Robinson’s Lexicon of the New Testament, pages (152-153). 
 
40 
 
 takes in the warp no less than the woof. See John 17: 8, 14, 
 17, 20, as our Lord emphasizes the letter of Scripture. 
 
 The most cursory reader of the Bible can scarcely fail to 
 notice the emphasis it places upon its very words. Just as the 
 sky at night is written all over with stars, so is the Bible written 
 all over with the kindred phrases, ‘‘God said,” “The Lord 
 spake,” “Thus saith the Lord,” “ The word of God,” “The 
 word of the Lord,” “The ingrafted word.” Peter’s work on 
 the Day of Pentecost is summed up in the statement: “And 
 with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save 
 yourselves from this untoward generation.” The angels stand 
 before Cornelius to say, “ Send men to Joppa and call for Simon 
 whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words whereby thou 
 and all thy house must be saved.” God’s last word in the Bible 
 is an environment of the integrity of its letter. “For I testify 
 unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this 
 book. If any man shall add unto these things God shall add 
 unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if 
 any man shall take away from the words of the book of this 
 prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life 
 and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written 
 in this book. ” 
 
 But we may be told that this statement in the Apocalypse 
 refers to the Book of Revelation alone. If we grant the asser¬ 
 tion, the statement loses nothing of its force or significance. 
 Any reference Bible will show the citation of nearly every other 
 if not of every other book of the Scriptures in the Book of Revela¬ 
 tion. Let any one look for himself and he will find the mere 
 reading suggesting parallels as he goes along. Let us put 
 this passage along with Matthew v. 19: 
 
 “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least com' 
 mandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least 
 in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach 
 them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of 
 heaven.” 
 
 And with Deuteronomy iv. 2: 
 
 “Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, 
 neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the 
 
41 
 
 commandments of the Lord your God which I command 
 you. ” 
 
 And with Deuteronomy xii. 32 : 
 
 “What thing soever I command you, observe to do it; thou 
 shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.” 
 
 Thus we find that the autocracy of God’s word written is so 
 absolute as not to permit us to add to or take from the words 
 of this Bible, the unit, the whole of which Deuteronomy, Mat¬ 
 thew and Revelation are three of the parts. 
 
 In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ not only denies 
 the statement of the Inaugural that there is nothing divine in 
 the letters, words and clauses of the Bible, but He goes further 
 than that. Listen to Him. “Think not that I am come to 
 destroy the law or the prophets! I am not come to destroy but 
 to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass 
 one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all 
 be fulfilled.” Bishop Ellicott says, “The ‘jot’ is the Greek 
 iota, the Hebrew yod, the smallest of all the letters of the 
 alphabet. The tittle was one of the smaller strokes or twists of 
 other letters, such, for example, as distinguished Delta from Rho, 
 or Kappa from Beta.” It was possible by the neglect or misuse 
 of the jot or tittle to turn truth into nonsense or blasphemy. 
 
 Hence, if the law is of a piece with the whole Bible, there can 
 be nothing superfluous or insignificant in that Bible. The jot and 
 tittle are as divine as the concepts. The Inaugural’s line of dis¬ 
 tinction between the essentials and the circumstantials is pro¬ 
 nounced by the Bible to be an error. You cannot separate as to 
 divine inspiration between the religion, faith and morals of the 
 Bible and its other characteristics, e. g., language, geography, 
 history. If we cannot trust the ipsisima verba of the Divine 
 writings when we want to learn the Divine will, what is there, 
 asks another, that we can trusts And he goes on to say: 
 
 “One jot, on e yod, a little thing that is not a letter in itself 
 so much as the adjunct and helper of some other letter—a yot, 
 a silent thing. The name of the wife of Abraham was turned 
 from Sarai to Sarah, and it was th e yod that did it; it was that 
 little silent insignificant adjunct that turned her into Princess. 
 God is careful of yod, or yot, or jot. He does not dot His i for 
 
42 
 
 nothing, nor cross His t merely for decoration.” If the jot, the 
 tittle, the iota, the subscript, the accent, the breathing point be 
 essential in God’s plan, what must we say of an attempt to wipe 
 out the letters, words, clauses, circumstantials of God s written 
 
 word? 
 
 The prominence of the human ear as a factor of redemption 
 lifts the language of the Bible to the pedestal of inspiration. 
 The door of responsibility opens as the Sermon on the Mount 
 reaches the climax of application in the phrase, “Whosoever 
 heareth these sayings of mine,” “The Parable of the Sower 
 presents man in four aspects as a hearer. Down comes from 
 heaven the warning. Take heed what ye hear. Seven letters 
 have come from the great white throne, every one of which bears 
 the postscript: He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit 
 saith unto the churches. 
 
 Dr. Briggs cannot escape the logic of the skeptic, who says: 
 •“ Any thoughtful person will see that the moment you begin to 
 doubt the verbal inspiration, the literal accuracy of the Scrip¬ 
 tures, you start on a road which will logically lead you to reject 
 the Scriptures entirely as a book of divine revelation, or go back 
 to the theory of verbal inspiration. There is no logical stopping 
 place between verbal inspiration and no inspiration. If you admit 
 that a single word or even line of the Bible was not directly 
 dictated by God, the authority of the book is overthrown, for 
 by making this admission you decide that human reason may 
 sit in judgment on the word of God, which is absurd. 
 
 So the Bible as God’s book teaches that the concept without 
 the word to manifest it is an unknown quantity a lamp with¬ 
 out a light, a messenger without a message. What would we 
 know of Shakespeare’s concept without his imperishable sen¬ 
 tences ? Of Edmund Burke’s concept without his polished 
 periods? Of Walter Scott’s concept without the word creations 
 of the Waverley Novels? Of Longfellow’s concept without the 
 Village Blacksmith, the Psalm of Life and Hiawatha? What 
 would we know of the Bible concept of man s fallen condition 
 if it were not for the story of Eden (and it is no cunningly 
 devised fable either), of Sinai, of Bethlehem and of Calvary? 
 What would we know of the Bible concept of faith and 
 
repentance if it were not for the histories of which the Eleventh 
 Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is an epitome, if 
 it were not for what the Bible tells circumstantially of the 
 impenitent antediluvians, of righteous Noah, faithful Abraham, 
 wrestling Jacob, penitent David, restored Peter? The Bible 
 concept of the completeness of our salvation appears as it 
 writes down that last shout from the victorious cross, “It is fin¬ 
 ished.” Its concept of the welcome which the Father will give 
 to the returning sinner appears in the Parable of the Prodigal 
 Son. O Christian, is it not something to have the Bible con¬ 
 cept of heaven set forth in the words, “ There shall be no night 
 there; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor 
 crying, neither shall there be anymore pain.” O afflicted one, 
 is it not something to have the Bible concept of trial set forth in 
 those weighty, stirring words of the Eighth Chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Romans, which show why “all things work 
 together for good to them that love God; to them who are 
 the called according to His purpose”? Is it not something for 
 us preachers to be able to tell sinners that the Bible concept of 
 God’s attitude toward them is set forth in the word that saved 
 Nicodemus, the Ethiopian eunuch and the Philippian jailer? 
 Yes, the Bible concept so inerrant is clothed in a word so iner- 
 rant that, as I have read somewhere, if I mistake not, Moses 
 does not adopt Manetho’s system of chronology, Daniel does 
 not insert the monstrous cosmogonies of the Babylonians, 
 and Paul never writes a word concerning Augustine’s denial of 
 the antipodes. 
 
 In the case of the Bible mystery the concept is a thing that 
 we cannot reason out. So we are shut up to the Bible word. 
 
 I come now to take up the Confessional Proof of Charge III., 
 
 and remark that Chapter I. of the Confession, Sections 2 and 8, 
 
 locate God’s word written in our Bible, translated into English 
 
 out of the original tongues, with its fifty authors, its 66 books, 
 
 its Old and New Testaments, its law, prophets, and Psalms, 
 
 Gospels and Epistles. The Gospels and the Epistles recipro- 
 
 callv confirm each other. The New Testament confirms the Old 
 * 
 
 directly in 263 instances, and indirectly in upwards of 350 cases. 
 The Septuagint in the case of the Old Testament, and the 
 
44 
 
 Christian Fathers in the case of the New, bear testimony to the 
 authenticity of the present canon. Thus our Bible contains the 
 very Pentateuch that Isaiah called law and testimony—the 
 Psalmist, God’s exceeding broad commandment which was re¬ 
 ceived by the Sadducees, expounded by Paul to the Galatians; 
 quoted by Jesus in the Temptation (from Deuteronomy, pro¬ 
 nounced by the Inaugural’s school of Higher Criticism a fraud), 
 enforced by the Sermon on the Mount; rescued by our Saviour 
 from the glosses of the Pharisees and Scribes. Our Bible con¬ 
 tains that which Paul, Stephen, Luke, Peter call the Oracles of 
 God. Our Bible is the only record that God has given of His 
 Son. The third gospel is called in its “Acts of the iVpostles, 
 the former treatise which Luke wrote to Theophilus. We read 
 in it the very gospel preached to Abraham, the very Scriptures 
 which Christ called upon the Jews to search; the very Deuter¬ 
 onomy and Revelation which will admit neither addition nor 
 subtraction; the very Word of the Law, for which Jeremiah 
 suffered; the very Law Prophets and Psalms searched by the 
 Bereans and opened unto Apollos by Aquila and Priscilla. Let 
 us recall Confession of Faith,Chap. I., Sec. 8. 
 
 VIII. The Old Testament in Hebrew, (which was the native 
 language of God of old,) and the New Testament in Greek, 
 (which at the time of the writing of it was most generally known 
 to the nations,) being immediately inspired by God, and by His 
 singular care and providence, kept pure in all ages, are therefore 
 authentical; so as in all controversies of religion the Church is 
 finally to appeal unto them. But because these original tongues 
 are not known to all the people of God who have right unto, 
 and interest in the Scriptures, and are commanded, in the fear 
 of God, to read and search them, therefore they are to be trans¬ 
 lated into the vulgar language of every nation unto which they 
 come, that the Word of God dwelling plentifully in all, they 
 may worship Him in an acceptable manner, and through 
 patience and comfort of the Scriptures may have hope. 
 
 Thus, Mr. Moderator, according to Sec. 8, Chapter I. of the 
 Confession, the authority of your and my Bible as God’s Word 
 written, depends upon the fact that it is the outgrowth of the 
 
45 
 
 original Hebrew and Greek, by which the revelation of God was 
 conveyed from Heaven to the children of men. The Presby 
 terian Church holds that our English Bible is what it is, because 
 the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament of 
 the original inerrant autograph of the Sacred Record are what 
 they are. If this be not the case, the Chair of Old Testament 
 Hebrew, and the Chair of New Testament Greek in our theo 
 logical seminaries, aye, the Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical 
 Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, are in each case 
 an anomaly; Dr. Schaff was engaged in a work of supereroga¬ 
 tion, when he translated portions of the Scriptures for Lange’s 
 Commentary; Dr. Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Tes¬ 
 tament have no especial significance; Dr. Briggs’ “ Biblical 
 Study” has not even the ghost of an excuse for its publica¬ 
 tion. The Inaugural says “the divine authority is not in the 
 style or in the words, but in the concept, and so the divine 
 power of the Bible may be transferred into any human language. 
 The Divine Authority contained in the Scriptures speaks as 
 powerfully in English as in Greek, in Choctaw as in Aramaic, 
 in Chinese as in Hebrew.”* I modify and correct the statement 
 by declaring that the Divine Authority is in the concept, as set 
 forth in the style and words of the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic 
 languages. That particular style and those particular words by 
 which the Bible writers have transmitted God’s Word to men 
 must determine the style and words of our English, our Choctaw 
 and our Chinese Bibles. For it is a sound principle that “ the 
 veracity of the truth transmitted must be equivalent, neither 
 more nor less, to the accuracy of the word which conveyed it.” 
 
 With respect to the original language of the Old Testament, 
 I quote the especially significant statement of Dr. W. Robertson 
 Smith, that the Septuagint confirms the substantial accuracy 
 of our Hebrew Bible. The Jews, whose advantage over the 
 Gentiles consisted, according to Paul (Romans iii. 3), in their 
 divinely authorized trusteeship of the oracles of God, were never 
 accused of unfaithfulness to their trust, as to the care of the 
 Scriptural text. Prof. Charteris tells us that “ the Jews of 
 Palestine regarded Hebrew as the language of inspiration, and 
 the old Hebrew books alone as the Sacred Canon.” Language 
 
 * Inaugural, Third Edition, pages 31-32. 
 
46 
 
 and logic simply mean nothing to those who deny that the Old 
 Testament text as it stands was accepted by Christ and the 
 Apostles, by all the writers of the New Testament, and by the 
 Jews of their day. Indeed, there are things in the New Testa¬ 
 ment we must deny, if the Old Testament be not authentic, such 
 as the Incarnation of Christ; Paul’s presentation of sin and 
 redemption in the Epistle to the Romans, and the whole spirit 
 and letter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 
 With respect to the original language of the New Testament 
 I call attention to an article by Prof. G. P. Wright m the 
 Homiletic Review of April, 1886. “According to the latest and 
 best authority,” says Prof. Wright, “ seven-eighths of the words 
 of the New Testament have passed the ordeal of textual criti¬ 
 cism without question; of the remaining one-eighth only a small 
 fraction are subject to reasonable doubt; so that fifty-nine six¬ 
 tieths of the words of the New Testament, as they came from 
 the original authors, are known with practical certainty. And 
 even of the one-sixtieth open to question, the larger part of the 
 doubt pertains to changes of order in the words and other com¬ 
 parative trivialities; so that, according to Westcott and Hort, 
 “ The amount of what can in any sense be called substantial 
 variation is but a small fraction of the whole residuary variation, 
 and can hardly form more than a thousandth part of the entire 
 
 text.” 
 
 Just here it is well to note that the greatest and most eminent 
 scholars who have been foremost in discovering manuscripts and 
 tabulating variations of the text have been men who believed in 
 the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. I name Robert Stephen, 
 Mill, Bentley, the great Bengel, Beza, Lachmann, Tiegelies, 
 Tischendorf, Scrivener, Burgon. Says Bentley, “ The more 
 the manuscripts, the greater the certainty and the less likelihood 
 of deception.” Bengel, who increased the list of variations, is 
 thus mentioned by Ellicott, “ He was a verbal critic, mainly 
 
 because he believed in verbal inspiration. 
 
 Dr. Briggs is known in Europe as well as America as a lead- 
 ing investigator of questions relating to the original tongues of 
 the Scriptures. In his response to the Charges and Specifications 
 last November he announced that he would pay no respect to 
 anything that was not rendered in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. 
 
 \ 
 
47 
 
 He thus confessed his slavery to literalism, which is condemned 
 both by Scripture, precept and example. He requires more than 
 was demanded of the Ethiopian Eunuch. A remark by Dr. 
 Cunningham Geike is in point here. “In Acts 8:22, Philip is 
 introduced as reading through the Ethiopian Eunuch the seventh 
 and eighth verses from the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. But 
 curiously he again quotes from the Greek translation of the 
 Bible, not from the Hebrew, the Ethiopian having that with him 
 and doubtless knowing nothing of the original language. Nor 
 does the Evangelist make any remark to him on the variations 
 in the translations he was reading from the text of the Plebrew, 
 which was canonical and inspired, while that of the Septuagint 
 was made by uninspired scholars—a fact which silences forever 
 any objection such as that if we are to learn from Scripture the 
 real will of God, we must go to the original.”* 
 
 And as good a scholar, ecclesiastical or secular, as there is in 
 the Presbyterian Church or in the United States of America 
 tells us that the supreme and paramount question which is 
 involved in Charge III. and its Specification is a question “ for 
 every minister and every layman to settle for himself; and, 
 happily, it is one which, in all the fullness of its importance, 
 needs no technical criticism to aid in its solution, but which 
 every man of ordinary education, common sense, and knowl¬ 
 edge of the English Bible, alone is competent to decide. The 
 burning question is one that needs no knowledge of either Greek 
 or Hebrew as a preparation to answer it.” 
 
 Thus the great body of the membership of the Church has a 
 substantial Scriptural reason for its pronounced earnest opposi¬ 
 tion to the Inaugural Address. Just as the Greek was near enough 
 to the Hebrew for the Eunuch to understand the plan of salvation, 
 so is the English of the Authorized and Revised Versions near 
 enough to the Hebrew, the Aramaic and the Greek for the most 
 unlearned Presbyterian, to say nothing of other Christian 
 denominations, to understand that the Inaugural contradicts 
 both the Bible and the system of Bible doctrine which is the 
 distinctive mark of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 It would be hard to find a reader of the Bible who fails to 
 observe its frequent affirmation of its own accuracy as God’s 
 
 * Sunday School Times , January 16th, 1892. 
 
48 
 
 word written. The Nineteenth Psalm follows a description of 
 the perfection of God’s Book of Nature with the declaration: 
 
 “ Ps. xix. 7. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
 soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the 
 
 simple,” 
 
 which declaration, says Dr. Briggs in Lange on Psalms, page 
 153, refers to God’s Word and the Revelation of His will. 
 
 I’note two instances in which Dr. Schaff gives us a vivid 
 appreciation of the accuracy of the Scriptures. The first is 
 
 Luke i. 1 to 4. Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set 
 forth in order a declaration of those things which are most 
 surely believed among us. 2 Even as they delivered them unto 
 us, which from the beginning were eye-witnesses, and ministers 
 of ’ the word ; 3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect 
 
 understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto 
 thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, 4 That thou mightest 
 know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been 
 
 instructed. 
 
 Dr. Schaff, in Lange on Luke, renders thus: Forasmuch as 
 many have taken in hand to draw up a narration concerning the 
 things fulfilled among us even as those handed them down unto 
 us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of 
 the word, It seemed good to me also, having accurately traced 
 down all things from the first, to write unto thee in order, most 
 excellent Theophilus, That thou mightest know accurately the 
 certainty of those words or doctrines wherein thou hast been 
 catechised. The second is that petition of Christ’s intercession 
 
 prayer, 
 
 “John xvii. 17. Sanctify them, through thy truth: thy word is 
 truth,” 
 
 in which he teaches that “ truth ” here is the predicate of the 
 word. 
 
 “ What was true of the oral proclamation of the word— 
 
 1 Thess. ii. 12. ‘For this cause also thank we God without 
 ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye 
 heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but, as it is 
 in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you 
 
 that believe,’ 
 
 holds good of the written,” says Lange, p. 43. “ For the rela- 
 
49 
 
 tion between word and writing (quoting from Martensen) is or¬ 
 dinarily this, that the writing compresses the copiousness of the 
 spoken word into a settled elementary form the final expres¬ 
 sion made clear and strong by deliberate reflection of the in¬ 
 spired thought—and so in Holy Scripture we have the ripe, 
 developed fruit of inspiration.” 
 
 Hence, we must take direct issue with the statement of Bibli¬ 
 cal Study, pages 411 and 412, cited and read by the defendant 
 as evidence. “ Inspiration has to do with the truthfulness, reli¬ 
 ability, accuracy and authority of the Word of God. ’ These 
 attributes are said to be those that “ make the Bible what it is 
 in the life of the people and the faith of the Church, without 
 raising the question of inspiration.” I think that it would be 
 better to say, “ Inspiration insures the truthfulness, reliability, 
 accuracy and authority of the Word of God.” It is to sever the 
 stream from its parent fountain to talk of these Bible attributes 
 without raising the question of inspiration. These Bible attri¬ 
 butes hold a somewhat different relation from the same attri¬ 
 butes in connection with the ledger of a counting-room. In my 
 discussion of the subject of inspiration yesterday, while I set 
 forth very definitely my own doctrine as to the extent of inspi¬ 
 ration, I wish to remind the Presbytery that it is not claimed 
 that the theory of the mode or manner of inspiration should 
 be made a test of orthodoxy. It was my object to show that 
 the theory of inspiration taught by the accused was virtually a 
 denial of inspiration in any true sense. It was not my object to 
 present a theory of inspiration which this Court must accept in 
 order that the theory of Prof. Briggs should be condemned. I 
 object to the theory that the concept alone is inspired, and have 
 endeavored to show that it is the truth which is inspired. 
 
 Let the Court, before leaving the consideration of Charge 
 III., attend to the relation of Jesus Christ to the Bible. He is 
 the character of its story, the subject of its doctrine, the result¬ 
 ant of its logic, the reason of its existence. So He says Him¬ 
 self. He came to fulfil the law. The Scriptures testify of Him. 
 The law, the Prophets and the Psalms were written concerning 
 Him. Abraham saw His day. David spoke of Him. Isaiah 
 prophesied of Him. So say the Epistles, as they proclaim that 
 
50 
 
 the Christ of the New Testament is the identical Christ of the 
 Old Testament. The Eleventh Chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews shows Christians of all ages looking to Jesus, the 
 Author and Finisher of our faith. Listen to Him as He answers 
 Philip’s petition: “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth 
 us.” Have I been so long a time with you and yet hast thou 
 not known me, Philip ? He that hath seen me, hath seen the 
 Father; thereby teaching the disciple that when he looked on 
 Christ he beheld the image of God, the Father.* And when 
 Jesus, our High Priest, makes the prayer of intercession, and 
 says: “ Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which 
 shall believe on me through their Word, ”f how can anyone 
 escape the conclusion that He whom Philip saw in the Word 
 made flesh, we, when the Holy Spirit makes the Scripture a 
 means of grace to our soul, see in the Word made Bible? This 
 truth is expounded by Paul in II. Cor. iv. 3—6. 
 
 3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. 
 
 4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of 
 them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of 
 Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. 
 
 5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; 
 and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God who 
 commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in 
 our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
 God in the face of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The fact that the gospel of the Bible revealed the image 
 of Christ as He manifested the image of the Father was the 
 reason of the method of Paul’s ministry. This appears from 
 the preceding context*. 
 
 II. Cor. Chapter IV. (1-2). 
 
 1 Therefore, seeing we have this ministry, as we have received 
 mercy, we faint not. 2 But have renounced the hidden things 
 of dishonesty not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word 
 of God deceitfully; but, by manifestation of the truth, com¬ 
 mending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. 
 
 For “ walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God de- 
 
 * John 14: (8-9). 
 f John 17:20. 
 
51 
 
 ceitfully, ” Conybeare and Howson have ‘ 4 I walk not in the paths 
 of cunning, I adulterate not the word of God. * For handling 
 the word of God deceitfully,” Lange has “nor falsifying the 
 
 word of God.”f 
 
 Now, just as the human body which tabernacled the Second 
 Person of the Trinity was the very man who was holy, harmless, 
 undefiled and separate from sinners, who was tempted in all 
 points as we are yet without sin, who did all things well, whose 
 challenge could not be met, “which of you convinceth me of 
 sin,” who was absolutely perfect, absolutely spotless, absolutely 
 infallible; so the human medium which tabernacles Jesus Christ 
 the Word made Bible must, but be as perfect, as spotless, as in¬ 
 fallible. If it took a perfect man to exhibit a perfect God it 
 takes a perfect Bible to exhibit a perfect Christ. There must 
 be no spots on this Parthenon. There must be no faults in 
 this mirror. There must be no errors in this original text. 
 There must be nothing in circumstantials to detract from its in¬ 
 fallibility. There must be nothing in the human setting to de¬ 
 tract from the perfection of God’s workmanship in the precious 
 jewel. I say it in all humility, Mr. Moderator, but in the honest 
 conviction of my soul, that the Bible as presented in the Inaugural 
 Address is not Jesus Christ the Word made Bible. Let Rev. 
 Hugh Martin’s Christ’s Presence in the Gospel History (pub¬ 
 lished some thirty years ago) confirm my position. 
 
 Referring to John 17: 20, we read, “ If Jesus Christ looketh 
 forth upon me now from their word by His Spirit, the Spirit 
 lighting up that very word as it has been written, and Jesus 
 thereby looking forth exactly to the very life as that written 
 word, if I may so say, permits Him,” then my Beloved fairer 
 than the sons of men chiefest among ten thousand is to me 
 altogether lovely and the express image of the Father only if 
 this word be exactly what the Spirit of Christ would have 
 written as holy men of God were moved by the Spirit an in¬ 
 spired record and perfect. 
 
 And the Gospel biography is of a piece with the whole Scrip- 
 
 v 
 
 * Conybeare & Howson, Life and Epistles of Paul, Randolph s Edition, page 
 447 - 
 
 \ Lange on II. Corinthians, page 64. 
 
52 
 
 ture, as we read: “That He should enter into it; identify 
 Himself with it; make it vital with His living power and vocal 
 with His own personal voice; make it from age to age the dwell¬ 
 ing-place of His Presence; the definition, the circumspection, 
 the expression of His gracious Presence; committing Himself; 
 thoroughly, contentedly, cordially committing Himself to all 
 generation to be judged as He appears there; this I cannot be¬ 
 lieve unless the biography answers His own great idea of what 
 His own biography should be. It must be perfect; even in all 
 the perfection that Christ Himself can give to it; yea, in all the 
 perfection He can claim for Himself. It must be an image as 
 perfect in its kind, in written words, of Jesus—as Jesus is the 
 perfect image in human flesh of the Eternal Father. The co¬ 
 alescence of the Presence and the Biography demand it. Nay, 
 it must be an Autobiography. Jesus Himself must be the 
 author of it—by His Spirit.” * 
 
 Thus we have shown whom we see under this inward illumi¬ 
 nation of the Spirit—at whose feet"we sit as we take in this Scrip¬ 
 ture which is the voice of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 This line of argument is confirmed by page 365 of Biblical 
 Study cited and read by the defendant as evidence as he sub¬ 
 scribes to the doctrine that “ the Holy Spirit as the Supreme in¬ 
 terpreter of Scripture is the highest attainment of interpreta¬ 
 tion.” Is it any wonder, therefore, that Section V., Chapter 
 I., insists upon the entire perfection of Holy Scripture? 
 
 Therefore from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of 
 Revelation this Holy Scripture is God’s Word written, is imme¬ 
 diately inspired, and is the rule of faith and practice. 
 
 Charge IV. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 
 charges the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., being a Minister of 
 the said Church and a member of the Presbytery of New York, 
 with teaching that Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, 
 which is contrary to direct statements of Holy Scripture, and 
 to the essential doctrines of the Standards of the said Church, 
 
 * Family Treasury (First Half-Year, i860), pages 349-350* 
 
53 
 
 that the Holy Scripture evidences itself to be the Word of God 
 by the consent of all the parts, and that the infallible rule of in¬ 
 terpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. 
 
 I will not read the Specification. From what source are we 
 to derive competent testimony with reference to the questions 
 involved in Charge IV. and Specification? Evidently from the 
 Bible alone, inasmuch as it contains the only really authori¬ 
 tative history on the subject, and its structure makes it the only 
 qualified interpreter of its own statements. While it is one book, 
 yet it is the product of fifty authors, each independent of the 
 other and each an independent witness. 
 
 The Gospel History of Jesus Christ shows him as the Great 
 Witness Bearer, constantly appealing to the belief of men. He 
 told Pilate: “To this end was I born and for this cause came I 
 into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.”* His 
 parting charge to the disciples was : “ Believe me that I am in the 
 Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very 
 work’s sake.”f As a voucher for His competency and credibility, 
 He introduces the Father: “The Father Himself, which hath sent 
 me, hath borne witness of me.”J God the Floly Ghost vouches 
 for the same. “When the Comforter is come whom I will send 
 unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth which pro¬ 
 ceeded from the Father He shall testify of me.Ӥ The author of 
 the Inaugural vouches for the same, as he says that “the authority 
 of Jesus Christ, to those who know Him to be their Divine 
 Saviour, outweighs all other authority whatever.” 
 
 Jesus Christ is noted by the Gospel writers as bearing testi¬ 
 mony to the existence, the identity of the Scriptures as God’s 
 written word twenty-four times. And that He intended the 
 Old Testament as we have it is evident from the fact that “the 
 most imaginative of modern writers will not call into question 
 that the books of the Old Testament, as we have them now, were 
 in existence at the time of the translation of the Septuagint, or 
 that they were acknowledged among the Jews all over the world, or 
 
 * John 18:37. 
 f John 14:11. 
 X John 5:37. 
 §John 15:26. 
 
54 
 
 that they were regarded by them with a reverence so great that 
 it ran into superstition and may almost be regarded as idola¬ 
 trous. ” 
 
 We know that our Lord challenged the belief in Himself on the 
 ground of the belief of the Jews in the person whom He authenti¬ 
 cated as the Author of the Pentateuch. “Do not think that I 
 will accuse you to the Father; there is one that accuseth you 
 even Moses, whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye 
 would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe 
 not his writings, how can ye believe my words? * 
 
 If Moses did not write the Pentateuch, no Jew can be blamed 
 for not accepting Christ. 
 
 So that, when the Inaugural Address asserts that— 
 
 Page 33, “ It may be regarded as the certain result of the 
 science of the Higher Criticism that Moses did not write the 
 Pentateuch, ” 
 
 it simply gives expression to the profane idea that our Lord was 
 dishonest. To say that He was ignorant of the discoveries by 
 which the higher critics eliminate Moses from the Pentateuch is 
 to say that we are not to trust a single promise recorded by the 
 Gospel writers as made by Him. 
 
 As we turn over the four Gospels to find citations from the 
 Pentateuch, we find that Matthew 19, 17: 9 is a quotation from 
 Deuteronomy; Mark 7: 10, from Exodus, Leviticus and Deuter¬ 
 onomy ; Luke 20: 28, 37 ? from Exodus and Deuteronomy; 
 John 1 : 45, from Genesis and Deuteronomy; John 5 : 45 ~ 47 ? from 
 Genesis and Deuteronomy; John 7: 19, 22, 23, from Genesis, 
 Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The Abraham, Isaac and Jacob of 
 Genesis are the subject of Christ’s frequent mention. The pass- 
 over of Exodus found its explanation in His Cross. The book 
 of Leviticus furnished His direction to the healed leper. The 
 brazen serpent of Numbers was His text in the sermon to Nico- 
 demus. We have seen that Exodus and Deuteronomy furnished 
 Him the weapon that vanquished Satan. I find that, in the four 
 Gospels, Jesus Christ, directly or indirectly, refers to Genesis 
 twelve times; to Exodus, twelve; to Leviticus, fifteen; to Num¬ 
 bers, three; to Deuteronomy, twenty. So that He, without 
 
 * John 5: ( 45 - 47 ). 
 
55 
 
 whom not anything was made that is made; without whom not 
 anything became that did become; by whom all things consist 
 knows nothing of the Higher Criticism s discovery of the pseudo- 
 Moses of the Deuteronomy, which never saw the light until the 
 men of Josiah’s day palmed it off on their king—of Ezra, as a 
 pious fraud; of Daniel, as a pseudonym. 
 
 Thus the testimony of other books of Scripture, with reference 
 to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch being countersigned 
 by Jesus Christ the Truth, is as indisputable and irresistible as a 
 mathematical axiom. Let us consider a brief outline of what it 
 says. The Pentateuch itself, in Exodus 24: 4, Numbers 33: 2, 
 Deut. 5 : 31 (Appointment) Deuteronomy 31: 9, affirms that Moses 
 is its author. It may be objected that Moses himself always ap¬ 
 pears in the third person. But the Pentateuch is a history, not 
 an autobiography. The centre of interest in Ihomas H. Ben¬ 
 ton’s “Thirty Years in the United States Senate,” and in James 
 G. Blaine’s “Twenty Years in Congress,” is, in each case, un¬ 
 doubtedly the personality of the author. The authorship of 
 these books is not questioned, however, because the authors 
 appear in the third person. 
 
 In Joshua I. (7:8), I. Kings 2:3, we have the testimony of 
 God; in Joshua 8:31, the testimony of his cotemporaries, one 
 of whom was Joshua, his chosen friend (testimony of Boswell, 
 concerning Johnson; of John Marshall, concerning George Wash¬ 
 ington; of John G. Nicolay and John Hay, concerning Abra¬ 
 ham Lincoln); in I. Kings 2: 3, again the testimony of David, 
 who sings in many a Psalm the Pentateuchal history (as Walter 
 Scott sings the early traditions of Scotland, or as 1 ennyson 
 sings the historic Britain); in Ezra 3:2, 6:18, Neh. I. 7-8, Neh. 
 13:1, the testimony of the whole Jewish nation; in I. Chronicles 
 6: 49, the testimony of the carefully kept genealogical roll of the 
 Hebrews; in Daniel 91 1, the testimony of one whose memorable 
 prayer shows his familiar acquaintance with his country’s history; 
 in Romans 10:19, the testimony of Paul, both a Hebrew and 
 Greek scholar; in Acts 3:22, the testimony of Peter when the 
 Gospel was on trial before the Jewish Sanhedrim; in Acts 7 • 37 
 38, the definite testimony of Stephen and of Luke, his reportei, 
 as the definite pronoun is applied to Moses—all affirming the 
 Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. 
 
56 
 
 The Inaugural Address put forth no novelty, not even in 
 America, when it heralded the assertion of the Higher Criticism 
 to the contrary. In 1794-95 a book appeared which contains 
 the following statements concerning the Pentateuch. Referring 
 to Deuteronomy it is said that “the style and manner of 
 writing marks more evidently than in the former books that 
 Moses is not the writer.” He then founds an argument on the 
 mention of “ Dan” (a place) in Genesis 14: 14, and on the men¬ 
 tion of a kingship in Israel, Genesis 36: 31, and cites these cases 
 as “ showing therefrom, as in the preceding case, that Moses is 
 not the author of the book of Genesis.” His final conclusion is 
 “ that the book of Genesis, though it is placed first in the Bible 
 and ascribed to Moses, has been manufactured by some un¬ 
 known person after the book of Chronicles was written, which 
 was not until at least eight hundred and sixty years after the 
 time of Moses.” 
 
 It may astonish some of us to know that these extracts are 
 from Thomas Paine’s “Age of Reason.” I was not so much 
 astonished when I read in the English Baptist Magazine of June, 
 1891, an account of those high priests of the Higher Criticism, 
 Wellhausen and Kuenen. The writer notes “the bitterness, 
 the contempt and the vindictive spitefulness which Wellhausen 
 takes every possible opportunity of venting in respect to the 
 religious motives and aims of these Old Testament writers who 
 prepared the ground for our distinctively Christian doctrines of 
 Sacrament and Atonement, the Priestly work of our Lord, and 
 the Sovereign Grace by which alone regeneration and sanctifica¬ 
 tion are ours.” 
 
 Kuenen is mentioned as speaking less offensively concerning 
 “the fictions of the Pentateuch and the superstitions and inter¬ 
 ested motives of their authors.” 
 
 The writer further speaks of “ the attitude of the great body 
 of Higher Criticism on the Continent” as “one of avowed 
 hostility to pious faith in a Divine Redeemer, and to a super¬ 
 natural revelation of forgiveness through the sacrifice of Cal¬ 
 vary.” 
 
 So these German critics have no reason to find fault with 
 
57 
 
 Thomas Paine, and before the Presbytery of New York sets its 
 seal of approval upon the Inaugural’s conclusion that Higher 
 Criticism has overthrown the Mosaic authorship of the Penta¬ 
 teuch, the brethren may well give heed to an English Bishop who 
 must have had the Broad Church critics in mind when he wrote: 
 “They cannot divide Moses and Christ. If they do not believe 
 the one, they will find sooner or later that they do not believe 
 the other. If they begin with casting off Moses and not believ¬ 
 ing his writings, they will find in the end that to be consistent 
 they must cast off Christ. If they will not have the Old Testa¬ 
 ment, they will discover at last that they cannot have the New. 
 The two are so linked together that they cannot be separated.” 
 How can this Court say otherwise than “ What God hath joined 
 together let not man put asunder.”* 
 
 Charge V. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 
 charges the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D., being a Minister of 
 the said Church and a member of the Presbytery of New York, 
 with teaching that Isaiah is not the author of half of the book 
 that bears his name, which is contrary to direct statements of 
 Holy Scripture and to the essential doctrines of the Standards 
 of the said Church, that the Holy Scripture evidences itself to 
 be the word of God by the consent of all the parts, and that the 
 infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture 
 itself. 
 
 The assertion that Isaiah did not write half of the book that 
 bears his name is answered, with one exception, by quotations 
 from that portion of the Book of Isaiah which the author of the 
 Inaugural Address in his Biblical Study and “Messianic Proph¬ 
 ecy ” ascribed to another person solely on the basis of the “ may 
 be ” of higher criticism. Mr. Moderator, if according to the line 
 of proof which has been introduced Moses be the author of the 
 Pentateuch we are shut up to the conclusion, that Isaiah is the 
 author of the whole of the book which bears his name. There- 
 
 * Ryle on John, Vol. I., page 322 . 
 
58 
 
 fore the may of the higher criticism cannot hold its place before 
 the must not of traditionalism, not of blind conservatism, but the 
 must of the competency, the credibility, the divine authority of 
 Jesus Christ as a witness, and of the competency, the credi¬ 
 bility, the divine authority of the writers of the New Testament 
 as witnesses. In the third Gospel, (Luke 3 14), we have Luke (the 
 preface to whose gospel according to Dr. Schaff vouches for his 
 accuracy), Paul (the friend of Luke who, we would say for the 
 benefit of the Higher Critics, may have had some agency in the 
 production of his gospel) and John the Baptist identifying Isaiah 
 as the author of the Fortieth Chapter. In Luke 4:17-18, we 
 have Jesus Christ as He set up the banner of His earthly 
 ministry at Nazareth, Luke and Paul, identifying Isaiah as the 
 author of the Sixty-first Chapter. In John 12:38-41, we have 
 John the Apostle identifying Isaiah as the author of the Fifty- 
 third Chapter. In Romans 10:16, 20, Paul identifies Isaiah as 
 the author of the Fifty-third and Sixty-fifth Chapters.* 
 
 “ The array of linguistic evidence in proof of a diversity of 
 authorship,” says Prof. Daniel S. Talcott, of Bangor Theological 
 Seminary, “rests very largely on an assumption which none of 
 these critics have the hardihood distinctly to vindicate, namely, 
 that within the narrow compass of the Hebrew literature that 
 has come down to us from any given period, we have the means 
 for arriving at an accurate estimate of all the resources which the 
 language at that time possessed. When we have eliminated from 
 the list of words and phrases relied upon to prove a later date 
 than the time of Isaiah, everything the value of which to the 
 argument must stand or fall with this assumption, there remains 
 absolutely nothing which may not be reasonably referred to the 
 reign of Hezekiah. Indeed, considering all the circumstances of 
 the times, it might justly have been expected that the traces of 
 foreign influence upon the language would be far more conspic¬ 
 uous in a writing of this date than they actually are in the con¬ 
 troverted portions.” 
 
 “ Probably there is not one of all the languages of the globe, 
 whether living or dead, possessing any considerable literatuie 
 which does not exhibit instances of greater change in the style 
 
 of an author writing at different periods of his life than appears 
 
 «► 
 
 * Other examples. Matthew 4: (14-15) refers to Isaiah 9:1; Matthew 12: (17-18) 
 to Isaiah 42:1; Acts2S: (25-26) to Isaiah 6:9. 
 
59 
 
 upon a comparison of the later prophecies of Isaiah with the 
 earlier. ” * 
 
 Every member of this Court knows that our own literature 
 abounds in such instances. Literary style varies with the age, 
 circumstances or idiosyncrasies of the writer. 
 
 There is the noted Junius, whose identity has baffled the 
 curiosity of four generations of critics; no one has been able 
 to detect him in any of the contemporary writers of his day. 
 When Walter Scott, the poet, appeared in the Waverley Novels, 
 the transformation was so complete as to puzzle his intimate 
 friends. The same Hawthorne wrote the “ Twice-Told Tales ” 
 and the letters which came to the State Department from the 
 Liverpool Consulate. America has a banker poet, and, because 
 he writes a poem, is he any the less the writer of the letter to 
 his business correspondent? To some of us the Inaugural itself 
 is a case in point, as we wonder at the facility with which the 
 same pen inscribes what we deem contradictory statements. 
 
 The author of the Inaugural says in “ Biblical Study ” : “ The 
 
 presumption of the New Testament is in favor of the authorship 
 of Isaiah.” We affirm that the evidence of the New Testament 
 is in favor of the authorship of Isaiah, as the author of the Inau¬ 
 gural once taught. 
 
 In a late production of the author of the Inaugural, entitled 
 “The Bible, Church and Reason,” he answers the question 
 “Who are the Higher Critics?” Appendix, p. 236, by giving a 
 list of 145 persons who are said to “ stand in solid phalanx 
 against the traditional theory that Moses is responsible for our 
 Pentateuch in its present form, and that Isaiah wrote the whole 
 of the book which bears his name.” In this list I read the 
 names of Julius Wellhausen, Ernest Renan, Abraham Kuenen, 
 Thomas K. Cheyne, Samuel R. Driver, W. Robertson Smith, 
 Arthur P. Stanley, John William Colenso, Crawford H. Toy, 
 William R. Harper, R. Heber Newton, Washington Gladden, 
 John W. Chadwick. The merest tyro in criticism does not need 
 to be told; indeed, it is the common report, that this solid pha¬ 
 lanx is so solid that its members cannot agree among themselves; 
 
 ^Smith’s Bible Dictionary (edited by Professor Hackett), Article Isaiah, Yol. II., 
 page 1165. 
 
60 
 
 so solid, that of the theories which they and their fellows 
 have formulated, 747 have by actual count been exploded or 
 have given up the gospel. An investigation would show, I doubt 
 not, that the whole list, with the exception of a few names is, as 
 to doctrine and practice, anything but Presbyterian. It is but 
 fair to say that any in this list who acknowledge that they are 
 atheists or agnostics or rationalists or Bible iconoclasts will not 
 be regarded by Presbyterian Church courts generally as compe¬ 
 tent or credible witnesses with respect to the Mosaic authorship 
 of the Pentateuch, or with respect to the unity of Isaiah. 
 
 And how can they be Presbyterian when the root principle of 
 the Higher Criticism, as expounded by the author of the Inau¬ 
 gural, is the fallacy which, as noted by another, “hinges on the 
 absence of testimony as to facts.” 
 
 The late Dr. Mendenhall, editor of the Methodist Quarterly Re¬ 
 view , made a journey to Europe, chiefly for the purpose, as he 
 writes, of investigating the critical biblical questions that have 
 been and are still in discussion between conservative and ration¬ 
 alist critics. This purpose was carried out in extended inter¬ 
 views with thirty-one of the prominent professors in Germany 
 and eight professors in England, besides numerous interviews 
 with other scholars in those countries and in Scotland and 
 France. He came home to write an editorial on “The Crime 
 of the Higher Criticism,” as he learned it from the school whose 
 members are named in the roll which appears in “The Bible, 
 Church and Reason,” and introduced by Dr. Briggs as evidence. 
 From that editorial I make the following extract: “ Results, not, 
 conclusions, are in order. It is a crime, with the former incom¬ 
 plete and undetermined, to declare the latter. It is a crime to 
 foist probabilities into the air when under analysis they turn 
 out to be the unsupported inventions of theorists. It is a crime 
 to dignify a conjecture with all the proportions, strength, 
 and character of a real fact, and to substitute the one for the 
 other. It is a crime to turn the Bible into a sporting ground for 
 theorists, who, unrestrained by conscience or the Christian faith, 
 and neglectful even of intellectual order and honesty, assail the 
 great writers of the Old Testament with invective and hauteur , 
 assign its books to periods and authors that neither history nor 
 
6L 
 
 logic will support, eliminate the supernatural element with the 
 fervor of infidelity, but in the guise of a professed faith, and 
 trifle with the stupendous and priceless truths of a revelation 
 whose chief value is derived from the very elements so ruthlessly 
 expunged. Such is the crime of the higher criticism.” * 
 
 Now something about the Silence of History: 
 
 Sceptics have grounded doubts concerning the facts of Chris¬ 
 tianity on the silence of profane historians of the time of the 
 writers of the Bible. Tacitus, Juvenal and Pliny prove that the 
 doubts have no basis of fact. So do the catacombs of the first 
 century. The younger Pliny talks about Vesuvius, its erup¬ 
 tions, but makes no mention of Herculaneum and Pompeii. 
 Humboldt was one of these doubters. See how he contra¬ 
 dicts and destroys his theory in the following, from Varn- 
 hagen's diary: “Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more 
 than once expressed, that too much must not be inferred from 
 the silence of authors. He adduces three important and unde¬ 
 niable facts, as to which one finds no evidence in places where 
 one would naturally above all others expect to find it. In the 
 records of Barcelona there is not a trace of the triumphal entry 
 made by Columbus; in Marco Polo no mention of the great wall 
 of China; and in the archives of Portugal nothing about the 
 voyage of Amerigo Vespucci in the service of that crown. (His¬ 
 tory of the Geography of the New World, Part IV., p. 160.) Still 
 more is this the case when the historian is a polite man of the 
 world, as were all the Roman historians of the first century, and 
 when the religion is one of lowliness. Of this we have illustra¬ 
 tions in our own time. Thus Smollett never noticed the Meth¬ 
 odist movement of 1750; nor has Lord Mahon, a historian pecul¬ 
 iarly sober and comprehensive, noticed the contemporaneous 
 evangelical revival of the Church of England. Yet what other 
 events have had greater permanent results, and at the same time 
 rest upon a more undisputed basis of facts? This line of argu¬ 
 ment eliminates the force of the evidence cited by the defendant 
 from the “Bible, Church and Reason,” pages 136-139.! 
 
 * Methodist Review, November, 1890. 
 t Family Treasury (Second Half-Year, i860), page 201. 
 
62 
 
 Charge VI. 
 
 The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 
 charges the Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D.D., being a Minister of 
 the said Church and a member of the Presbytery of New York, 
 with teaching that Sanctification is not complete at death, which 
 is contrary to the essential doctrine of Holy Scripture and of the 
 Standards of the said Church, that the souls of believers are at 
 their death at once made perfect in holiness. 
 
 I will not spend time in reading the specification and proofs. 
 
 All that we can know on this subject is derived entirely fiom 
 revelation. The Scriptures call it a mystery. I claim that in 
 what they say about it there is nothing to warrant more than the 
 name of Middle State, if even that, in describing the interval 
 between death and the resurrection; nothing to warrant the ex¬ 
 tension of the process rather than the fact of the enjoyment of 
 redemption after death; nothing to warrant the theory of pio- 
 
 gressive sanctification after death. 
 
 Now there are some things very clear in the revelation of this 
 mystery in I. Cor. 15 (51, S*)- A11 dead Christians are asleep. 
 
 When we are asleep we show the rest which consists in the inac¬ 
 tion of mind and body. But all Christians, both dead and living, 
 must be changed; and why the dead Christians should be com¬ 
 pelled to go through the process of sanctification in the Middle 
 State, while the living Christians are the subjects of immediate 
 sanctification, I cannot imagine. The Court will notice that the 
 dead are raised incorruptible. The context shows that they be¬ 
 come incorruptible, as this corruptible puts on incorruption and 
 
 as this mortal puts on immortality. 
 
 In Hebrews xii. : 23, the thought of the writer is absorbed by 
 the society of that heaven to which he and his fellow pilgrims 
 were going as he speaks of the spirits of just men made perfect. 
 And Lange on Hebrews, page 208, observes that “the mention 
 of ‘ the spirits of the just made perfect ’ argues decisively alike 
 against the assumption of a sleep of the souls of the departed,, 
 and against the doctrine of a purgatory,” and we might add that 
 it argues against the unpsychological, the unethical, the contra- 
 confessional and unscriptural doctrines of the Middle State set 
 
63 
 
 forth in the Inaugural Address, and which is the ground of 
 Charge VI. 
 
 But let Scripture interpret Scripture. In John i. 29: 
 
 “29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and 
 saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
 world. ” 
 
 John the Baptist certainly affirms that the atonement of Christ 
 removes the sin with its penalty which bars us out of heaven, as 
 is evident from the fact that the writer of the Fourth Gospel, 
 the Apostle John, when he gives us Revelation’s record of what 
 he saw in heaven, declares, Rev. vii. 9, 13, 14: 
 
 “ 9 After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no 
 man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and 
 tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed 
 with white robes, and palms in their hands. 13 And one of 
 the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are 
 arrayed in white robes ? and whence come they? 14 And 
 I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These 
 are they which come out of great tribulation, and have washed 
 their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” ; teach¬ 
 ing that the multitude of the world’s redeemed gathered around 
 this same Lamb, and that their robes were washed and made 
 white in His blood. Rev. 14: 13 says: “And I heard a voice 
 from Heaven saying unto me, Write blessed are the dead wffiich 
 die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they 
 may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them,” 
 that those who die in the Lord rest from their labours; and that 
 the members of the Church, the Lamb’s wife, Rev. 19: 8: 
 “And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine 
 linen, clean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of 
 saints,” teaching that saved sinners are arrayed in that fine 
 linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of saints.. 
 And 1 John 3:2: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and 
 it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, 
 when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see 
 him as he is,” 
 
 teaches that it is not safe to dogmatize on the details of our 
 future because it doth not yet appear what we shall be. We only 
 
64 
 
 know one thing; we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as 
 He is; and does not the presence of Christ require complete 
 sanctification? I call attention to the following Scripture. 
 
 i John 3: 9—10: 9 Whosoever is born of God doth not com¬ 
 
 mit sin ; for his seed remaineth in him ; and he cannot sin, because 
 he is born of God. 10 In this the children of God are manifest, 
 and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness 
 is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” 
 
 Timothy 4: 7-8: “ 7 But refuse profane and old wives’ fables, 
 and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. 8 For bodily exer¬ 
 cise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all things, 
 having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to 
 come; ” 
 
 and Revelations 3:4-5: “4 Thou hast a few names even in 
 
 Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk 
 with me in white; for they are worthy. 5 He that overcometh, 
 the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot 
 out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name 
 before my Father, and before his angels.” 
 
 These passages present the doctrine of sanctification. The 
 sanctified do not commit sin, do righteousness, love the breth¬ 
 ren, exercise themselves unto godliness, do not defile their 
 garments, thus exhibiting that godliness which has the promise 
 of the life to come. These undefiled on. earth pass through 
 death to heaven and are clothed in white raiment, enrolled in 
 heaven’s registry, and confessed by Christ before the Father 
 and the holy angels.* 
 
 “ 25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the 
 church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify 
 and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 
 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church 
 not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should 
 be holy and without blemish.” 
 
 This passage describes earth’s work as the Church is sanctified 
 and cleaned with the washing of water by the word as Christians 
 are living Bibles. But the same Church in Heaven is a glorious 
 Church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without 
 
 * Ephesians 5: 25-27 
 
65 
 
 blemish. In Ephesians, 3: 15-16: “15 Of whom the whole 
 family in heaven and earth is named. 16 That he would grant 
 you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened 
 with might by His Spirit in the inner man.” Paul does not pray 
 for that part of the Church which is in heaven, but for that 
 part on the earth, when he says, “That He would grant you 
 according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with 
 might by His Spirit in the inner man.” 
 
 Luke 16 : 22, 26 : 
 
 “22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was car¬ 
 ried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom; the rich man also 
 died, and was buried. 26 And besides all this, between us and 
 you there is a great gulf fixed; so that they which would pass 
 from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that 
 would come from thence ”, 
 proves that as death finds us, eternity fixes us. 
 
 The standards are the expression of these declarations of 
 Scripture. Christ takes care of the departed soul and the dead 
 body until the reunion at the resurrection of the last day. 
 
 Therefore, psychology has no statement, ethical philosophy 
 has no construction, the logic of sanctification no refinement 
 that ought to lead this Court to give the least consideration to 
 the Inaugural’s theory of progressive sanctification after death. 
 The Inaugural certainly deals with the future state in a manner 
 unwarranted by the example of those who have returned to the 
 earth from behind the veil which separates time from eternity. 
 Samuel appeared to Saul, the doomed king, and, if I mistake 
 not, he made the monarch feel that there would be no reversal 
 of his sentence. Lazarus came forth from the tomb to show 
 how Jesus Christ makes death stingless, and is it to make death 
 stingless to usher us into the dying incident to sanctification in 
 this life. Paul was caught up into the third heaven, and this 
 Inaugural presumes to speak ex cathedra concerning a state 
 where he says that he “ heard unspeakable words not lawful for a 
 man to utter.”* Jesus Christ left the sepulchre, and the New 
 Testament, from the Acts of the Apostles to the book of Revela¬ 
 tion, inclusive,does not show a scintilla of proof that in His instruc- 
 
 * 11 , Corinthians xii. 4. 
 
66 
 
 tion of the disciples in the things pertaining to the Kingdom of 
 God, during the forty days’ interval between His resurrection and 
 ascension, He gave the faintest hint of progressive sanctifica¬ 
 tion after death. Although Samuel, Lazarus and Paul are silent 
 and Jesus Christ confirms them in that silence, yet the Inaugural, 
 in spite of that silence, steps forth with a logic whose conclusion 
 is that it is not exactly unsafe for a man to die impenitent, foi 
 if the righteous can fill up the lack of this life in the future, the 
 wicked ought to have the same chance; the conclusion that the 
 righteous are not after death in a state where the wicked cease 
 from troubling and the weary are at rest, a conclusion which en¬ 
 courages prayer for the dead and cuts the nerve of evangelistic 
 effort. 
 
 The Inaugural does not make a legitimate use of Reason in its 
 eschatology. It deplores the neglect to study “the Messiahs 
 descent into the abode of the dead (I quote): a doctrine of great 
 importance to the Ancient Church of His resurrection, His en¬ 
 thronement, His reign of grace, His second advent—O how 
 these have been neglected.”* So say I, so says the Bible, so says 
 the Confession, but both Bible and Confession warn us to confine 
 our studies on these subjects to the lines laid down by the Scrip¬ 
 tures. We are never to forget the lesson our Lord taught Peter: 
 “What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shall know here¬ 
 after. ”f We are not to be oblivious to the fact that, along with 
 Paul, we see through a glass darkly; only know in part; must 
 pass into the beyond before we can see face to face, and know 
 even as we are known. We are to remember that, while on earth 
 speaking as a child, understanding as a child, thinking as a child, 
 we can neither speak, nor understand, nor think as we will when 
 having attained that perfect holiness which is the believer’s at 
 death we have put away childish things. So that the danger of 
 dogmatizing concerning the future lies in the look of the student 
 through the darkness; in his exhibition of the vain reach of par¬ 
 tial knowledge after certainty; in the display of the undeveloped 
 powers of human nature’s childishness, as they manifest them¬ 
 selves in hypothetical statements and remote possibilities. It 
 
 * Inaugural Address, Third Edition, page 61. 
 t John 13:7. 
 
67 
 
 goes without saying, in the literary, scientific and theological 
 worlds, that this is the common fault of that Higher Criticism 
 which the Inaugural represents. An expert in its line of inves¬ 
 tigation tells us that, since 1850, the Higher Critics have set 
 forth 539 theories in regard to the Old Testament, and 208 in 
 regard to the New Testament. Of the whole 747, 603 have been 
 given up, and a goodly portion of the remaining 144 are losing 
 their hold. How true the remark of the author of the Inaugu¬ 
 ral Address, in his Biblical Study, page 80: “Criticism itself, as 
 a human method of knowledge, is also defective, and needs self- 
 criticism for its own rectification, security and progress. It 
 must again and again verify its methods and correct its pro¬ 
 cesses.” I have somewhere noticed the suggestion that some 
 optical students have been of opinion that, if they had been con¬ 
 sulted, the eye might have been better made than nature or the 
 Creator has made it. But such criticism requires Omniscience 
 to justify it. I think that I put it rightly when I say that, in 
 ourselves, as we grapple with the problems of the Bible, and 
 especially with the problem of the Middle State, we 
 
 ‘ ‘ Are infants crying in the night, 
 
 And with no language but a cry,” 
 
 and we announce no new discovery when we say that the Higher 
 Criticism has disciples who forget, in their study of the Bible, 
 that an infant is dealing with the Omniscient God. 
 
 Thus, Mr. Moderator, Fathers and Brethren of this venerable 
 Court, I have endeavored to show why the Court should sustain 
 the Charges and Specifications tabled by the Committee of 
 Prosecution. 
 
 The Committee has confined itself to that which is funda¬ 
 mental to the whole discussion. It has sought to grasp the root 
 of the matter, on account of the principle laid down by our 
 Lord in Luke 6:43-44: “For a good tree bringeth not forth 
 corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 
 For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do 
 not gather figs; neither of a bramble-bush gather they grapes.’ 
 
 The Prosecuting Committee do not plead at the bar of this 
 Court as the opponents of Higher Criticism. We all believe that 
 the Scriptures should be searched by the most thorough scholar- 
 
68 
 
 ship. But we do not disguise the fact that we are but five of the 
 thousands who are the foes of that Higher Criticism which has 
 borne fruit in such a production as the Inaugural Address. For 
 its denial of an infallible Bible brings forth fruit in an exceed¬ 
 ingly fallible system of theology. It makes light of the Super¬ 
 natural element of the Scripture miracle, notwithstanding the 
 proof it gave to Nicodemus of the direct agency of God, notwith¬ 
 standing the denial by Peter that there was anything occult in 
 the cure of the lame man who laid at the gate of the temple. Its 
 presentation of man’s original condition speaks the language 
 neither of the Scriptures nor of the Standards with respect to 
 original righteousness and original sin. Its assertion of race- 
 redemption at once suggests Universalism, and seems to set aside 
 individual regeneration, faith, repentance and accountability. 
 While it exalts the ancient heroes of the faith, it takes care to 
 tell us that respectable modern society would not receive into 
 the family Noah and Abraham, Jacob and Judah, David and Sol¬ 
 omon. It bases this surprising statement on the opinion that in 
 their time, the divine exposition of sin was not so searching, and 
 the divine law of righteousness not so evident. But Hebrews, 
 XI., teaches the contrary with respect to Noah, Abraham and 
 Jacob. Judah could teach many modern sinners a lesson of hon¬ 
 esty. I. Kings, iv. 5 informs us that David, with one exception, 
 turned not aside from that which was right in the sight of the 
 Lord. Solomon was in close communion with God. We are not 
 to forget that all these persons were under the correction of 
 divine righteousness. 
 
 The Inaugural Address refers to the ethics of Jesus Christ in 
 terms which do not recall Paul’s idea of ethical Christianity, as 
 he says: “ I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me 
 and gave Himself for me.” It is out of harmony with all the 
 prayer and singing and preaching of evangelical churches. It 
 confounds fact with traditionalism and falsifies History, Phil¬ 
 osophy and Science as applicable to the Scriptures, by exalting 
 what is called Biblical Theology to the disparagement of System¬ 
 atic Theology as formulated in the Creeds and Confessions of 
 the Church, while everybody knows that Systematic Theology, 
 to be theology, must be Biblical Theology, and that the Bible 
 
69 
 
 itself abounds in systematic statement; as for example the Ten 
 Commandments and the Apostolic Benediction. But the unsci¬ 
 entific character of this Biblical Theology is apparent in the fact 
 that it so abounds in statements which involve the nature of the 
 Bible itself as to give ground for the following inquiries from an 
 infidel of the present day: “Is it (the Bible) the Word of God, 
 or does it only contain some words of God? Was it verbally in¬ 
 spired or inspired only in a general way? Did the events which 
 it records actually happen, or are many of its stories which 
 appear in historical form only symbolical myths or fairy tales? 
 Was the world created in six days, or is the first part of Genesis 
 only a poem? ” 
 
 We cannot deny the existence of a widely spread conviction 
 that the Inaugural Address has a divisive and destructive tend¬ 
 ency which imperils the peace of the Church, encourages the 
 enemies of the truth, and interferes with the proper training of 
 our candidates for the ministry. And all this it does in the nom¬ 
 enclature of the Higher Criticism. We extract from its vocabu¬ 
 lary, as follows: Imagination ; Inference ; Conjecture; Psycho¬ 
 logical Sense; Development; Philosophy; Method of Inference; 
 I venture to affirm; Suggests the conjecture; I assume; I ex¬ 
 clude; Evidently inserted; Interpolation; Best scholarship; 
 Blind conservatism; Narrow traditionalism. 
 
 Just here is the place for a very brief outline of the evolution 
 of the document which is the immediate occasion of the Charges 
 and Specifications before the Court. 
 
 I. Jean Astruc, 1684-1753: “ Conjectures on the original 
 
 memoirs which Moses used in completing the Book of Genesis.” 
 It appears that Astruc did not tell the truth concerning his first 
 publication. Voltaire called Astruc’s work audacious, danger¬ 
 ous, and said that “it redoubled the darkness it sought to dis¬ 
 perse.” 
 
 II. Johann Salome Semler, 1725-1791, Professor at Halle, 
 Prof. Kurtz declares that he cast doubt on the genuineness of the 
 biblical writings by setting up a theory of inspiration and accom¬ 
 modation which admitted the presence of error, misunderstanding 
 and pious fraud in the Scriptures, by a style of exposition which 
 put aside everything unattractive in the New Testament as “ rem- 
 
70 
 
 nants of Judaism ” by a critical treatment of the Church and its 
 doctrines, which represented the doctrines of the Church as the 
 result of blundering, misconception and violence,” &c. 
 
 III. George Lorenz Bauer, 1755-1806, Professor at Heidel¬ 
 berg. Bible to be interpreted by grammatical and historical con¬ 
 siderations; not with reference to theological doctrines. Differ¬ 
 ence between the dogmatic opinions of the writers of the differ¬ 
 ent books of the Bible, Biblical Theology of the Inangural Ad¬ 
 dress found in this writer. 
 
 IV. Bruno Bauer, 1809. Free action of the reason. Many 
 catch words, terms of the author of the Inaugural are from this 
 author, e. g., The Inaugural uses the term The Reason. In Eng¬ 
 lish we usually say “ Reason ” without “ The.” 
 
 This notable Address deals with the established verities of 
 Christianity, as for example the Divine Sovereignty and the 
 Atonement, as the student of mathematics whose problems pro¬ 
 pose conditions which contradict the axioms of the science, 
 such as “ The whole is the sum of all its parts.” “Things that are 
 equal to the same thing are equal to one another.” For there is 
 no Divine Sovereignty if God recalled a decree in the case of 
 Nineveh; there is no Atonement, if men are saved irrespective 
 of individual character. Science reports facts; history events; 
 theology doctrines; but the author of the Inaugural reports 
 theories which are the fruit of his individual conclusions, not 
 established results. 
 
 This Court should not lose sight of the fact that the defendant 
 is a theological teacher. Let me invite its attention to the 
 following observations on the relation of students to a popular 
 professor, which were occasioned by an ecclesiastical trial on the 
 other side of the ocean. “ The students look not in the dry light 
 of exegesis. If they do not support a popular professor whether 
 right or wrong, it is evident that their personal attachment 
 strongly influences them. And the fact that students are prone 
 to give unreasoning regard to a popular professor, might be cited 
 as a good reason why the Church should carefully select its 
 theological professors.” The force of this statement is effectively 
 described by Mr. Spurgeon, “I heard of a gentleman who 
 taught Greek. After a while the class went to another gentle- 
 
n 
 
 man, and he said that it was more trouble to get the wrong 
 teaching they had received out of their heads than to get the 
 right teaching in. To unlearn is more trouble than to learn.” 
 
 If I mistake not the Presbyterian Church will be slow to com¬ 
 mend instruction which sends forth ministers from her theologi¬ 
 cal halls trained to doubt rather than to believe. 
 
 So, considered as a whole, the Inaugural Address in its her¬ 
 meneutics, is unscientific; in its theology, unbiblical; in its 
 anthropology, unphilosophical; in its soteriology, inadequate; 
 in its eschatology, a guess; in its ecclesiology, Romish; in its 
 polemics, heterodox ; in its practical theology, contradicting 
 the axiom “That truth is in order to goodness.” And this 
 is just because of the principle announced by its author in 
 Biblical Study, page 194: “That the exegete prefers the may 
 until he is forced to the must” a principle which has certainly run 
 to seed in the Inaugural. 
 
 If this Court sustains the Charges and Specifications tabled by 
 the Committee of Prosecution it will be because it deems that 
 the Inaugural Address puts the author out of relation with his 
 denominational environment. This belief is emphasized when 
 we consider his professional environment. The Inaugural is not 
 abreast of Dr. Henry B. Smith on Inspiration and Eschatology. 
 It is not abreast of Dr. Schaff on “Biblical Interpretation ” in 
 Lange’s Commentary, and on the Westminster Confession in his 
 “Creeds of Christendom.” It is not abreast of Dr. Vincent in 
 his ‘ ‘ Word Studies of the New Testament. ” It runs right athwart 
 the Hebrew and Greek Lexicons of the man who gives the name 
 to the Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical Theology in the 
 Union Seminary. And when it makes so little of what it calls 
 the circumstantials of Scripture it discounts the faithful labors 
 whose glorious result appeared in the publication of “Biblical 
 Researches in Palestine” in the interest of a verification of the 
 circumstantials of the Bible. It is also out of relation with the 
 consensus of thought of the American Presbyterian ministry, 
 both past and present (among whom are not a few of the Union 
 Seminary Alumni), and has brought forth a protest from the 
 rank and file of the denomination. 
 
 Surprise has been expressed that we ordinary pastors and lay- 
 
n 
 
 men should presume to call in question the deductions of emi¬ 
 nent scholarship. Spener once, in talking about Martin 
 Luther, said: “When a dwarf stands upon the shoulders of a 
 giant, he owes his commanding view to the tallness of his 
 upholder.” No wonder, then, that a common instructor, who is 
 far inferior to Luther, should sometimes see things the Great 
 Reformer himself did not see, and which he could not have dis¬ 
 covered if he had not been lifted so high by Luther. Now, 
 Mr. Moderator, I have endeavored to look at this question from 
 the shoulders of two millenniums of scholarship, and I think 
 myself happy in announcing that in this argument I have found 
 no firmer support than when I have stood on the shoulders of 
 professors of the Union Theological Seminary. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, Fathers and Brethren: The members of the 
 Committee of Prosecution, in pleading before this venerable 
 Court, are no less anxious that these Charges and Specifications 
 should fail if we are wrong than we are that they should be sus¬ 
 tained if we are right. 
 
 But until convinced that we are wrong we feel that it would be 
 wrong for the Presbyterian Church to compromise in the slightest 
 degree her position with respect to the authority of the Holy 
 Scripture and with respect to the Bible, which commences with 
 Genesis and ends with Revelation, translated into English out 
 of the Original Tongues, both in its circumstantials and essen¬ 
 tials, whether they appear in “narrative example, description 
 type, argument, appeal, exhortation, warning, precept, promise, 
 presentations and representations, in prose and poetry,”* and 
 confirmed by the philology, archaeology, chronology, historiology, 
 ecclesiology, theology and psychology of human scholarship, 
 as the sceptre of that authority. 
 
 It will indeed be a sad day for the Presbyterian Church when, 
 breathing the atmosphere of the Inaugural Address, she so for¬ 
 gets herself as to declare that a man’s moral sense is the test of 
 inspiration; as to turn her back on ethics and theology for the 
 sake of Hebrew roots; as to magnify learning at the expense of 
 logic; as to assert that criticism is everything and character 
 nothing; as to deny common sense for the sake of uncommon 
 
 * McCosh’s Intuitions of the Mind, page 444. 
 
73 
 
 scholastic attainments; as to banish the Divine factor from his¬ 
 tory; as to sacrifice truth to antithesis. 
 
 Two children were playing with a boat at the seaside. “You 
 will have to fix that mast better before you sail it,” said their 
 father. “But,” said the boy, only too eager to launch the 
 miniature vessel, “it’s all but right.” “All but right,” said his 
 discerning elder sister, “all but right; well, that’s wrong.” 
 Now, if a minister or teacher be all but right with respect to the 
 Holy Scripture as God’s word written, and the rule of faith and 
 practice, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of Amer¬ 
 ica would be false to her standards, false to her history, false to 
 the world, and 'false to her God, if she were not to say, “Well, 
 that’s wrong.” For she cannot do without the cloud by day 
 and pillar of fire by night, which God has given her in this 
 blessed old Book, God’s Book, Reason’s Book, the Church’s 
 Book, and consequently Man’s Book. Rock firmer than Gibral¬ 
 tar, for heaven and earth shall pass away, but the Word which 
 Christ the Word of the Word owns as His, shall not pass away; 
 Rock of the Ages, with its one old, old story, which American 
 Presbyterianism has told, and will tell over and over and over 
 again; the story that pierced the gloom of Eden’s expul¬ 
 sion with the light of hope as it beamed from the Star of 
 Bethlehem; the story that cheered Abraham’s heart as he 
 looked forward to Christ’s day and was glad; the story that 
 caused David to leave the world with an anthem of triumph as 
 he sung of an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and 
 sure; the story which made the visit of Nicodemus to Jesus the 
 most memorable night of His life; the story with which the 
 Holy Ghost shook Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost; the story 
 through which my brother in Christ we received power to become 
 the sons of God as we believed on His name; the story which 
 the Church Militant will through her courts, her theological 
 seminaries, her pulpits, her Sunday schools, her homes, her 
 members ever tell as she goes up through this wilderness to the 
 Church Triumphant singing Dear dying Lamb, Thou Christ of the 
 Bible; Thou Christ of the Old Testament; Thou Christ of the 
 Law; Thou Christ of the Prophets, and Thou Christ of the 
 Psalms; Thou Christ of the New Testament; Thou Christ of the 
 
74 
 
 Gospels; Thou Christ of the Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of 
 the Holy Ghost; Thou Christ of the Epistles; Thou Christ of 
 the Book of Revelation; Thou Christ of the Divine, Infallible, 
 
 Inerrant Bible. 
 
 “ Dear dying Lamb, thy precious blood 
 Shall never lose its power 
 Till all the ransomed church of God 
 Be saved to sin no more.” 
 
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