REVIEW.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8793, 1 May 1890, Page 2 (Supplement)

REVIEW.

" Whither ? A Theological Question for tha Times." By Ciiahi.es Augustus Briggs, D.D., Professor of Hebrew and the Cognate Languages in tho Union Theological Seminaiy.—New I'ork: Cbarles Scribner'3 Sous.

This is a remarkable book. It appears at a critical juncture in the history of confessions and revisions. 16 contains some novel, not to say startling, conclusions. In order to judge of tho worth of these, it may be well first of all to know something of the writer, and his standing as a scholar in the theological world.

Dr Briggs then is professor of Hebrew and the cognate languages in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. He i= a graduate of the University of Berlin, and was intimately associated with Roediger and Isaac Dorner. Ho was for 10 years the editor-in-chief of the Presbyterian Roview, and he was also an active promoter of the Presbyteriau Allianco. He is the author of three other boons besides the one now in question—" Biblical Study," " Missionio Prophecy," and "The History of American Presbyterianism," all of which are admittedly authoritative works on the subjects with which they deal.

In short Dr Briggs is recognised as the best equipped scholar in the American Presbyterian Church.

" Whither ? " his last book, may be said to be creating a sensation, not only inside but outside Presbyterian circles. The writing of it came about in this wise: At the instance of his friend Dorner he undertook a study of the history of doctrine, giving special attention to justification by faith and its relation to sanctification. The outcome of this was to convince him that Protestant scholastics had departed from the Reformation faith and from that of the Westminster Confession. Since that timemore than 14 years ago—" his study of tne Westminster standards, in the light of the Westminster divines and their Puritan associates and precursor?, has continued with constantly increasing interest." In the preface to tho book he has spent," he says, " no time, labour, or expense in searching the original editions and manuscript sources of all documents relating to this subject—spending many months in the chief libraries of Great Britain and the lesser Puritan libraries, and diligently searching iv old book stores for any book, tract, and manuscript that could be found and purchased." A wealthy layman, to whom the book is dedicated, supplied him with the necessary funds, and the entire collection is now in the library of the Union Theological Seminary, and is the " best Westminster library iv the world." The result of all this study is to prove to him that modern Presbyteriauism haa "departed from the Westminster standards all along the line." He was troubled, he says, with these facts, and made incidental allusions to them now and again. But he hesitated to make known the whole lest he would incite theological controversy, and do harm to the kingdom of Christ. He waited for an eternal call, and that, he conceives, has now coma in the action of tho General Assembly in raising the question of the revision of the " Confession of Faith."

It will thus be seen that tha author of this book stands in the front rank of scholars, anil chat he has specially prepared himself by a long course of study for dealing with tho problems which it discusses. It is not tho work, therefore, of a mere tyro or sciolist. It is (he work of ouo who has given the bast ytars of hi 3 life to a special a:id prolonged examination of the history and situation with which it deals.

We" have been thus careful to f.tate at tho outsat the special qualifications of Professor Brigge, because some of his conclusions are go entirely at variance with current orthodox views that their very novelty may saem to stamp their author as unqualified to form a judgment. Moreover, it is impossible for us to s(st forth the evidence, in any detail, upon which Professor Briggs founds these conclusions. We 6hould hope, however, that hia eminent fitness to deal with these questions will bo sufficiently recognised by what wo have said. What, then, are somo of these conclusions ? He begins first of nil by drawing a distinction between true and false orthodoxy, or oxtbodnxism, as he calls the latter. " Orthodoxisra assumes to know the truth, and is unwilling to leatn ; it is haughty and arrogant, assuming the divine prerogative of infallibility and inerrancy; it hates all truth that is unfamiliar to it, and persecutes it to the uttermopt. ,Iv regard to tbe standard of orthodoxy, it "is the sum total of truth revealed by God" If a man has mastered this, then he may claim to beorthodox. If not, his orthodoxy is incomplete. Hence " orthodoxy and "progressive orthodoxy are convertible terras." This prepares the way for a consideration of a revision of creeds ami confessioos shouid the progress of truth require it. He gives an outline of tbe circumstances out of which the Westminster Confession grew, and ho proceeds to show lint the Presbyterian Ohurcb, under the guidance of its reputed orthodox leader?, has departed all along the line from some of the cardinal doctrines of its standards. He arranges these departures under the heads of " Extra Confessional," " Infra Confessional," and " Contra Confessional." Several of the points which ho makes here are new, and will be startling to some, To the present writer, ey, it is new to ba told that subscription to tho Confession was not intended, by th« f tamers. "It mis imngsnd,"

aays Dr Briggs," by tho Scottish Parliament, in

tho interests of breadth and liberty, to give all übsoribors a right to tho church, and to prevent

that intolerance against tho Episcopal clergy that burst out in Scotland at the Revolution, and would drive them all from the church. . .

[t is thus ona of the icraarkuble changes of his;ory that a subscription which was ordered in ;ho interests of toleration should become in

jr years tho instrument of intolerance."

The founders of the American Presbyterian Ohurch never subsctibed tho Westminster Confession, and when subscription was enacted it wasonly " to the essential and necessary articles." Dr Briggs then proceeds to tell when and how subscription was required, and also to point bow thu American Church has revised the Confession. They have entirely, he cays, set aside more than half the w^rk of the Westminster divines. These divines were more concerned about church polity and worship than about doctrine. A deeper study has corrected much of their work in the former department. How is it, ho asks, they were so falliblo in that, and so nifallibio in what they considered secondary ? Those who oppose revision, therefore, are most inconsistent, and "no one would have repudiated such inconsistency more than Westminster divines themselves."

But Dr Briggs goes much further than this. He maintains tho church haa drifted away eutirely from the cardinal theses of the Refor-

ination, and from the truths embodied in tho Westminster standards. It is here, probably, that he will arouse tho greatest opposition. He comes into contact here with the champions of orthodoxy, with the school of theology represented by the late Dr Hodge and hia son. He Bhows this (1) in regard " to verbal iuspira-

tion." Dr Hodge says this is a doctrine of the Presbyterian Church and evangelical Christendom. Dr Brigg6 replies this may be the private opinion of Dr Hodge and his son, but it is not the official doctrine of the church. "No confession of faitb, or catechism of recognised thinking in the Reformed or Lutheran Churches teach that the Scriptures are inspired in tho verbal expression." Verbal inspiration bads logically to tho obso-

lute inerrancy of the original Scriptures. Theo-

logiana like Warfield, Hodge, and Patton maintain that a single proved error would destroy the inspiration of the Scriptures,

Dr Briggs replies by showing that the Westminster divines did not teach this. "It is nst only it conflict with the historic faith of the church, but with Biblical criticism." He is shocked at tho seriousness of the issue which thij raises. "No more dangerous doctrine," he says, "has ever coma from the pen of men. It has cost tho church the loss of thousands. It will cost ua teu thousaud and hundreds of thousands unless the true Westminster doctrine in

put in its place." Similarly Dr Briggs discusses the question of the authority of Scripture and its canonicity, and argues that here again orthodoxisui haa quite departed from the position of the Westminster divines. So far he has been dealing chiefly with the first chapter of the Confession. He proceeds through the whole of the remaining chapters seriatim, and endeavours to show that our modern divine 6

are of teu Extra Confessional, or Contia Coufes-

sional, or lufra Confessional — sometimes asserting and demanding adherence to doctrines that are not in the Confession, sometimes to doctrines contrary to it, and Eometimes ignoring or laying very littlo stress upon many on which the Confession is strong and emphatic. We cannot follow the author through all this. His treatment of the subject of Divine decrees is particularly good—showing that these are not arbitrary, but guided always by love and holiness, which are the basis of the Divine nature. He points out here that real historic Calvinism is not the Calvinism of the modern dogmatists who have gone nigh " the unpardonable sin of limiting the grace of God." In regard to the salvability of the heathen ami of infants, he argues that " it is contrary to the Confession to believe iv the salvation of all infants or to believe in the salvation of any of the heathen who are capable of being outwardly called by the ministry of tho word." He sustains his position here by extracts from some of the leading Westminster divines, and he has examined, he says, the greater part of their writings without getting any opinion contrary to th« above conclusion.

One of his most startling contentions is the departure which church theologians have made from the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. " Iv three of the leadiug treatises on systematic theology used in our seminaries there are no references in the indexes to the forgiveness of sins, or to pardon of sin." He quotes the elder Hodge as saying that " God cannot forgive sins, or any sin. The sinner may be forgiven, but the siD must be punished." This statement is made in the interests of a sufetitutionary atonement, but it is a complete departure from the faith of the reformers and the teaching o£ scripture. Space will not permit us to follow Dr Briggs through his examination of the other doctrines of the Coufessiou and the lapses from them. In dealing with the sacraments he makes tho surprising statement that " the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, and the real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper are as truly in the Westminster standards as they are in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England." The general conelus.on which this examination leads tio is that What i 3 known as the old theology. Tho theology which grounds itself excellence on the Confession is not an old theology at all. Ifc is a theology as new as that which commonly goes by the name, and judged by its own standards is not nearly so true. And he says the condition of the Presbyteriau Churcii is not singular. All the other churches have equally drifted from their Confessional moorings. The queston is, Whither? There are tome doctrines common to all, and which will remain for ever; but there are others which occasion discord, aad others still which have come up with the new light shed by science and Biblical criticism, and which now demand solution. The church must facs these, and she can best do it unitedly. The latter portion of the book, therefore, enters upon a discussion of the doctrines that divide the church and the barriers to Christiau union. This is conceived iv a broad and generous spirit, and the Catholic sympathies of the writer win our hearty admiration. He shows how slight after all arc the things on which the evangelical church differs. Even the Roman church agrees with Protestants oil nine-tenths of the contents or Christianity. He holds, however, that the Papacy or a hierarchical despotism claiming infallibility ... is tho closest approximation to the Antichrist of prophecy that has yet appeared in the world." Ha is very outspoken regarding the barrier to Christian union which this presents, yet he maintains that those " socalled Protestants who refuse to recognise the Roman Catholic Church as a true church of Jesus Christ are guilty of heresy and schism. He praises the resolutions of the recent Laoibeth Conference, which have since been adopted by the American Episcopal Church, for the "restoration of unity among the divided branches of Christendom," He thinks they are a workable basis for Christian union. " They are," he says, "iv my judgment, entirely satisfactory— provided nothing more is meant by their authors than their language expressly conveys." Now, it is not supposed that this book is an attack on the Westminster Confession ; on the contrary, it is a defence of it. Dr Briggs maintains that, so far from it 3 being a barrier to progress, it is far ahead of the church. His main aim is to show that the Eo-called orthodox party are the real propouudersof a new theology —a theology which in many of its cardinal points is totally at variance with tho Confessional doctrines. He maintains that the orthodox leaders have taken their views of doctrines from the continental scholastics of. the seventeenth century, instead of from the Puritan and Westminster divines, aDd have read the dogmas of the former into the Wesfcinincter Confession. He ask?, thertfore, for a reexamination of our beliefs, the basis of them, ani the direction iv which they tend. Personally, so far as wo C:in gather, he sees little to object to in the standards of the church. His chief quarrel is with the interpretation which the leaders of the church insist in putting upou them. Still for tho sake of others he makes an eloquent plea for revision, or at least a reexamiuation. Those who refuse this, he says, do so in direct opposition to the ti-aching of these very standards themseivee. The book concludes with an appeal calm indeed, and yet not without tho gleam and glow of restrained passion to the church to rouse herself up, aud all around her progress is the watchword. " Dogmatic theology in Great Britain and

America has been too long in the bondage

of seventeenth century scholasticism and eighteenth century apologetics. The time has come for it to burst these bonds and

march forward. It ought to run with all its might, and march at the head of the column of modern learning. ChrUfc is the

King of n Kingdom of Truth, and His followers ought to be ashamed to drag His banners in the rear."

Ho warns tho church that every form of Ohrisliasiity which h»3 opposed the progress of doctrines iv the past has been cast aside and left behind in the race. Yet he is not pessimistic ; he believes thit \vu are on the eve of nnother reformation, and that the " churches of Protestanisin aro ripening for a better future."

We have thus indicated something of the trend of thought of this remarkable book. It is atimoly contribution. To the liberal party in the church whoso faco is set towards revisiou it

will be a tower of strength; to the adversaries it is a gauge of battle which they must take up or quit the field.

The book is written in the best spirit. It is polemical, but there is no trace of the angry partisan. Every word is courteous; but ho who speaks impresses you as under the mastership of truth only. The stylo is attractive. Dr Briggs goes straight to his point. There is no

circumlocution. Not a word is wasted. Neither is there any parade of learning. There is a fulnt ss of knowledge indeed ; and yet you are conscious of a certain restraint of strength whxh indicates an unknown reserve of power. The book must provoke replies. Already the vetera:: Dr M'Cosh is in the field, and others are sure to follow, especially those who own the leadership of the elder and younger Hodgen—whose writings, says Dr BiiggH, "havu usurped tho place of the Westminster theology in the minds of a large portion of the ministry of tbe Presbyterian churches, and now stand in the way of progress iv theology and of true Christian orthodoxy."

—The increased cost of wood nnd ivory is said to have increased by o&e-tkird tlio cost of English pianos,