II. — The address contains, in our judgment, nothing which can

be fairly construed into heresy or departure from the West- minster Confession, to which Dr. Briggs honestly subscribed at his recent inauguration.
(a). His words concerning "Bibliolatry " are not aimed at humble and devout reverence for the Word of God, but at the error, rebuked by the Apostle Paul, of revering " the letter " above " the spirit."
(&). Dr. Briggs declares that, conjointly with the Bible, the Church and the Reason are sources of authority in re- ligion. He uses the term " reason " as embracing the con- science and the religious feeling. We object to the term " sources," since there is but one source of divine authority — God himself. We prefer to say that the Bible, the Church,
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and the Reason are media and vehicles through which we recognize and receive the divine authority. This is the generally-accepted Protestant position. Every Church in Christendom admits that the Church is a medium of divine authority.
The Confession of Faith declares that " unto the catholic, visible Church, Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God."
That the reason, in the broad sense in which it is explained by Dr. Briggs, is also an organ to and through which the divine authority is conveyed, is assumed in Scripture and in the Confession, and is the necessary postulate of a divine revelation to man. It is the only point in the natural man to which the qualities of God's character, the operations of His power, and the right-reasonableness of His claims can appeal : and it is distinctly declared and assumed by St. Paul to be the recipient of such appeals ; to be the subject of the divine Spirit's illumination ; and to become thus the proper instrument for discerning, comparing, and judging spiritual truth. If the reason has no such function in re- ligion, it is superfluous to assert that " Scripture is profitable for teaching, for discipline, and for upbuilding in righteous- ness." Spiritual righteousness implies an intelligent and rational perception and reception of the law and truth of God. The living sacrifice which is "holy and acceptable unto God " is a "rational service."
But Dr. Briggs does not, with the Romanist, exalt the Church above the Bible and the Reason. He does not, with the Rationalist, place the Reason above the Bible and the Church. Neither does he, as has been often charged, co- ordinate the three sources. His position is the Protestant and the Presbyterian position, assumed in his subscription to the declaration of the Confession, that the Scriptures are " the only infallible rule of faith and practice," and asserted in his address in the words : " Protestant Christianity builds its faith and life on the divine authority contained in the
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Scriptures." That Protestant Christianity too often depre- ciates the Church and the Eeason is an entirely distinct statement, involving a question of fact ; and the statement and its discussion in no way affect Dr. Briggs' endorse- ment of the Protestant doctrine of the supreme authority of Scripture.
To assert, as has been so often done, that Dr. Briggs is aiming to undermine the divine authority of Scripture, is preeminently unfair. Not only this Inaugural, but all his published writings, teem with the most positive and uncom- promising expressions of love and reverence for the Bible.
(c). The consistency of Dr. Briggs' position as to the supreme authority and divine quality of Holy Scripture, is in no way affected by his views of the nature of Inspiration.
While asserting the plenary inspiration of Scripture, he denies that inspiration involves absolute inerrancy — literal, verbal accuracy, and perfect correspondence of minor details.
In this view there is nothing original or new. It is the view of Calvin, and of an overwhelming majority of Prot- estant divines in Europe and America. It was propounded at least eight years ago by Dr. Briggs in his "Biblical Study."
Inspiration, in the sense of literal inerrancy, is nowhere claimed for Scripture by Scripture itself.
It is contradicted by the contents of Scripture in the form in which we have it. It involves, logically, a minute, specific divine superintendence of each detail of the entire process of transmission — copying, translating, printing — and the pre- vention of all errors. It confronts those who maintain it not only with discrepancies of statement in the present text, but with the innumerable textual variations in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, and the variations between the Hebrew and the Septuagint. To meet these facts with the assertion of the inerrancy of the original autographs, is to beg the whole question in dispute, to lay down a purely arbitrary, a priori hypothesis, and to introduce into the discussion an entirely
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irrelevant factor, seeing that the errors and discrepancies re- main and the original autographs cannot be recovered.
To make the inspiration of Scripture turn upon verbal in- errancy is to commit the Church to an utterly untenable position, and to place her apologists at the mercy of cavillers who are only too glad to evade broader and deeper issues and to shift the discussion to the region of mere verbal de- tails, where they are sure to have the best of the argument.
Dr. Briggs holds and teaches the doctrine of the divine in- spiration, infallibility, and authority of the Holy Scriptures in all matters of Christian faith and duty, which is all that any evangelical divine is bound to maintain on that subject. The Westminster and other Confessions of Faith clearly and strongly assert the fact of divine inspiration, but wisely ab- stain from denning the mode and degrees of divine inspiration. The former is a matter of faith, the latter of human theory, on which there must be liberty if there is to be any progress. To impose upon a Christian teacher any particular theory of inspiration not sanctioned by the Bible itself, is tyranny.
(d). Dr. Briggs is further charged with a departure from the Westminster Eschatology in teaching progressive sanctifi- cation after death.
While we are not to be understood as accepting or endors- ing Dr. Briggs' conclusions on this point, it is sufficient to say that he is here in an open field, where, having expressly repudiated the doctrines of future probation, universal restoration, and the Bomanist purgatory, he is certainly en- titled to the largest liberty in the attempt to elucidate a subject so little understood, and on which the standards are open to differences of interpretation. The phrase " progress- ive sanctification after death " admits of a sound and ortho- dox interpretation ; but Protestant Eschatology, as defined in the Confessions of the 16th and 17th centuries, is gener- ally admitted to be defective and in need of further develop- ment within the limits of that caution and reserve imposed by the comparative silence of Scripture on that mysterious
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period between death and resurrection. In the words of the late Henry B. Smith, written not long before his death : " What Bef ormed Theology has got to do is to Christologize predestination and decrees, regeneration and sanctification, the doctrine of the Church and the ivhole of Eschatology."