Young men, candidates for the sacred office, sound, perhaps, on the main doctrines of grace, but deeply tinctured with an exotic transcendentalism, will from time to time knock at the door of our Associations, for a license to preach the gospel, or summon the Churches to set them apart, by the laying on of hands, to the Christian ministry. The question will thus come up, Whether unsoundness on the subject of inspiration, or, in other words, whether a belief in the Bible as of supreme authority so far, but only so far, as it accords with the feelings of the individual, shall be an insuperable barrier, when the candidate is otherwise generally sound, to ministerial fellowship? This is the question we propose now to consider.

But before we attempt any answer to this question, we think that it should be illustrated, with the greatest possible perspicuity. There have always been shades of difference on the subject of inspiration, in the Orthodox community. Nor are shades of difference incompatible with essential agreement. They may coëxist with an unhesitating confidence in the Sacred Scriptures as the Word of God, and as man's infallible rule of faith and duty. One may believe that the whole Bible was literally, chapter by chapter, and verse after verse, so inspired by the Holy Ghost, that man is no more than the chirographer, while God is the sole author. Another may be willing to go no farther than to say, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God in such a sense, that, whether indited, suggested, or superintended by the Holy Spirit, it yet expresses his mind and will as to what we are to believe and practise, and nothing different. In both these cases the Scriptures retain their supremacy. The religious system which they teach is considered a strictly divine system throughout; and the doctrine which any passage rightly interpreted contains, is the doctrine God requires us to receive.

There may still be differences of opinion as to the specific design of certain books, and the meaning of particular texts. But these differences will give rise to questions of interpretation, not to questions on the authority of the record itself; they are questions to be decided on exegetical principles by the Christian student seeking illumination from above, and anxious to hear what God the Lord hath spoken; believing also, that when he has obtained the true import or meaning of a passage, he has obtained the mind of God as expressed in it.

The difference between diversity of opinions on questions of interpretation, and diversity on the great question of the supreme authority of the Scriptures properly understood, is of so much importance to our subject, that we propose to illustrate it by an example. It is affirmed by some, that the Mosaic cosmogony is in flat contradiction to geological facts. Suppose now we allow, for the sake of argument, that there is an apparent disagreement between the deductions of science and the account of the creation contained in the first chapter of Genesis. The rationalist will affirm truly that no clear contradiction to the revelations of nature can be of divine origin. Supposing that he has discovered, as he imagines, such contradiction between the theological and the geological accounts of creation, he at once rejects the former, as an ancient mythical composition utterly unworthy of belief. On the other hand, some zealous defender of the faith, over whose mind the arguments of science have little power, may contend that the creation of the world in six days, and according to the exact order laid down in the Bible, is a doctrine so infallibly revealed, that no geological fact is to have any influence in opposition to it. But has either party manifested wisdom in coming thus suddenly to their results? Nature is from God, and so, we affirm, is the Bible. Both are revelations, and neither can contradict the other. He who denies the truths God has written on the walls of the universe, denies God so far forth, as really as he who denies the truths which are spread over the pages of the Bible. But is there not room for both parties to retain their orthodoxy, the one as an orthodox geologist, and the other as an orthodox theologist? Allow, as we have said, for the sake of argument, an apparent opposition between the two great volumes of revelation. So long as we have sufficient evidence that both came from God, we have no authority to withhold confidence from the one in favor of the other.

Geology is an infant science. Its teachings, undoubtedly, when fully collected and justly interpreted, will be, like the Scriptures, an infallible expression of divine wisdom. But there are questions of interpretation in geology. The facts of science may be conceded, and there still be a diversity of opinion as to the meaning of these facts, and their bearing upon established opinions. No man can be justified, in the present state of zoological and geological knowledge, in affirming that the first chapter of

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Genesis bears the stamp of falsehood upon it. He is bound to wait till the evidence is all in; and till it is ascertained that the facts of nature cannot be fairly interpreted so as to harmonize with those of inspiration.

On the other hand, we may concede to geology all that its most ardent scholars can demand, and we have still a question of interpretation as to the exact meaning of the Scriptures themselves. Great progress has been made in the science of hermeneutics since the middle ages, and especially since the commencement of the nineteenth century; and every year is shedding new light on this important part of theology. The great astronomical facts of the Copernican system are now universally conceded; no Galileo fears imprisonment for blasphemy when he teaches them, nor does the most jealous biblical student feel troubled about them. They all harmonize with the now universally received modes of interpretation. So in geology, the facts of science may aid the explanation of Scripture, and both revelations exist together in beautiful agreement. Already theology, by many of its soundest teachers, concedes what geology first demands as to the original creation, namely, that it took place at an unknown but immense period of time before the world was fitted up for the immediate occupation of man. The geological and the theological cosmogony agree also in this, that all things were originally brought into existence by an intelligent Creator, that the earth before the production of light was for a period enveloped in water and darkness, that the last great work of creation was man, and that he must have been called into being about the time which the Mosaic account represents. Without dwelling upon other coincidences, these are sufficient to inspire both the naturalist and the biblicist with confidence in the two great sources of revelation, and with the belief that a more perfect knowledge will harmonize what may now seem discordant in them.

In the meanwhile, the theologian may solve his difficulties, for the present, without misgiving as to the divine authorship of the sacred record. He may suppose, with Professor Silliman and others, that the term translated days, in our version, signifies epochs, each perhaps of immense duration; and so make out, as he has done, a Scriptural cosmogony which shall harmonize with the successions of geological eras. Or, he may suppose, without violence to the sacred record, that during the great unknown

period between the creation of the earth out of nothing and the introduction of man upon it, all those mighty convulsions and changes, the evident traces of which astound the geologist, took place; that after the heavy foundations of granite, molten by internal fires, were poured over the earth, and other igneous masses consolidated upon them, and the whole series of stratified rocks was piled above them, and after partial creations of vegetable and animal life, the fossilized remains of which are now so abundantly found in the crust of our globe, the Almighty, being about to introduce immortal man, his own child, created in his own image, upon it, saw fit to furnish and beautify for his special use a world which he had ages before called into existence, and had been gradually preparing for this end; and that this latter work of furnishing and adorning, he accomplished literally in six days. Surely the occasion was worthy of the miracle. And if this theory involves the idea that animals and plants must have been created in full growth, at the time the earth was fitted up for man, we answer, If geology does not corroborate such a supposition, it cannot effectually deny it. Man was unquestionably called into being, not as an infant, but as a man. Geology furnishes no embryonic fossils of the human race. And if it be true that there is no variety appreciable to the senses, in forms of animal life during the early period of their ovicular condition, it is equally true that no embryonic animal can be developed into anything different from its own kind. Man could not have descended from the fishes, or the beasts of prey. The eggs of polypi produce only polypi, the eggs of trout produce only trout, the eggs of the sparrow and the bulfinch produce each their own species, and no other. Nor could man, in the natural order of things, have come into being originally as an embryo of his own class, for there is no conceivable way in which such a germ could have been developed into perfect humanity, nor in which helpless infancy, without an additional miracle, could have been nourished into manhood. When man was created, he was created man. If so, the supposition is not irrational, that, after plants and animals had been successively created and destroyed during uncounted years, full grown animals and full grown plants were called into being at the same period with full grown man.

Or if any one objects to these theories, he may suppose, if he will, that the first chapter of Genesis was never intended as a

detailed account of the order and manner of creation, but only to convey to the human mind some hieroglyphic or parabolic representation of the great fact, that God made the world, and furnished it for man; just as some of the descriptions of Heaven are not to be taken literally, but as distant similitudes of unspeakable things. Such an explanation may be unsatisfactory, but all must perceive a difference between an error as to the meaning of a passage, and an utter rejection of the passage itself.

The theologian may adopt still other methods of interpretation without denying the record. Or he may say frankly, that he does not understand what the Holy Spirit intended to teach respecting the creation of the world, but that he holds the subject under advisement as he does many of the prophecies, waiting for further light. In the meanwhile, his principle is, that the real meaning of the passage in question, expresses the mind of God on the subject. He receives the record with awe, as Pharaoh did his dream, but seeks in vain as yet for some Joseph to give the explanation.

We hope that this example will clearly illustrate what we mean, when we say that there is a manifest difference between diversity on mere questions of interpretation, and diversity of opinion as to the authority of the record itself. The same remarks will apply to the Bible generally. One may think that the Book of Judges, for instance, was dictated by the Holy Spirit word for word, as it now stands in the Hebrew canon. Another may think that it was collected by Samuel the prophet, from more ancient records, and revised by him under a superintending influence, which made it such a history as God was pleased to have transmitted for our instruction. In either case the man is a believer in the authority and inspiration of that Scripture. But if without any other guide than his own understanding or his own feelings, he allows himself to say, This chapter is of God, and this chapter is of man, it is evident that he does not stand on the same platform with those who receive the whole Bible as from God.

Now, the practical question for the Orthodox Church to settle is, Whether a person, however talented, however orthodox in other respects, and however devout, who yet adopts the principle that it is proper to reject those portions of Scripture as uninspired, which do not accord in his opinion with certain other truths, or with his mental sensations, or with the inspirations of his own