Consideración del informe de la comisión de Licitaciones de Obras y Servicios, sobre el concurso privado para la obra:

[12260] The whole body of religious truth and theological opinion, as it now exists, may, without absurdity, if not with strict propriety in all points, be compared to an extensive mine, which has been known and wrought for ages, and on which mining companies and individual miners are still busily employed. Among these miners there is a great diversity of practice, arising from a corresponding difference of theory, as well in relation to the value of the

ore as to the method of procuring it. All are agreed that gold is to be found there, and that it there exists in combination with other metals or with certain earths But one of the oldest and most active companies proceeds upon the principle that these adjuncts must not be sepa- rated from the gold, having been formed in combination with it, and being for that reason equally precious. Another company, or rather a solitary member of the first, departs so far from the opinion of his fellows as to hold that the adjuncts are of later date, having by some mysterious process been evolved from the gold, in which they were originally latent, and of which they consequently still form part. A third set, or company, assume an opposite position, namely, that the gold has been formed, or at least brought to perfection, by the successive combinations into which it has entered as a constant element, and that the adscititious sub- stances with which it is now mixed have had a share in this creative process, although worthless in themselves and now superfluous. A fourth

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12260 — 12261 1

[introduction.

class admit! the latter part of this opinion, but rejects the first, alleging that the adjuncts are and always have been worthless, and insisting on their total separation from the precious ore, by precisely the same nicthc^ds and the use of the same implements employed by their own predecessors centuries ago. Any change in the hereditary processes of mining and metallurgy is looked upon by these as a depravation of the gold itself. By way of contrast to this strange idea, a fifth set steadily maintain tliat no regard whatever should be paid to any former practice or contrivance, but that every miner should begin de novo, manufacture his own tools, and invent his own methods, as if no experiment had yet been made and no result accomplished. While each of these laborious companies is wedded to its own peculiar theory and practice, and regardless of the rest, there is a sixth,

which differs from them all, and yet in some degree agrees with each, by carefully distin- guishing the gold from the alloy, and laboriously separating one from the other, in the use of the best methods which their own experience or that of their forerunners has brought to light and proved to be effectual.

The application of this parable, so far as it

requires or admits an application, is as follows : The first class or company of miners repre-

sents the vuli^ar Popish doctrine, which puts Scripture and tradition on a level, and requires the monstrous after-growth of ages to be treated with the same consideration as the primitive doctrines and institutions, out of whose corrup- tion it has sprung. The second theory is

ewman s, in wliich a series of gradual addi- tions to the primitive simplicity is granted,

but alleged to be the natural evolution of a germ or principle implicitly contained in the original revelation, and designed from the beginning to be thus evolved. Over against this stands the doctrine maintained by many German vriters, which recognizes all the absurdities and heresies of past times, either as modifications of the

truth, or as processes without which it would never have attained its present value, so that the truth is actually more true than it would have been but for the many falsehoods which have heretofore usurped its place, obscured its light, and marred its beauty. The miners who persist in the exclusive use of the ancestral implements and methods are those orthodox traditionalists who, not content with holding fast to the original doctrines of the Reforma- tion, attach equal sanctity and value to the ancient forms of definition and elucidation,

making no distinction betw-een one who teaches a new doctrine and one who propounds an old one in new language. These theologians would would as soon go to the stake for the scholastic formula in which the truth is set forth by some human teacher as they would for the truth itself or the authoritative form in which the Word of God exhibits it.

A worthy counterpart to this school is the one which rushes to the opposite extreme of foolishly ignoring all the past, and makes selj the startinc^-

point of all development and human progress. These are the miners who are so afraid of being hampered by adherence to the implrnirnts and methods of their predecessors, that they obsti- nately sink new shafis instead of going down the old ones, and waste no little time in the cre.ition of original spades and grubljing hoes. Lastly, the really enlightened miners, among whom we of course aspire to hold an humble place, while they inaintain the immutability of the truth itself and the completeness of its revelation in the Word of God, believe them- selves at liberty, or rather, under the most solemn obligations, to employ the best means of discovery, exposition, illustration, and diffu- sion, and as a necessary means to this end, seek to know the methods of their predecessors and the fruits of their exertions, abjuring neither the experience of their fathers nor the use of their own judgment, but applying both with freedom and discretion, as alike essential to complete success. These miners neither bind themselves to use the rude and awkward appa- ratus of the first explorers, nor engage to fabri- cate a new one for themselves. They only pro- mise to employ the best, an undertaking which implies a due regard to previous improvements

no less than to fresh researches, as it still holds good of the religious teacher, whether from the chair, the pulpit, or the press, that " every scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." — British and Foreign Evangelical Revieiu, 1853.

2 The opinions on this subject examined. (l) Those which pervert the trite doctrine of development.

[ 1 2261] The theory of Pctavius adopted by Dr. ewman has prejudiced many devout minds against the true doctrine of development. And not unnaturally. For when we find it main- tained that there can be an indefinite expansion of the Christian faith as time progresses, and that the church is not only able to mould new shapes out of old truths, but also to introduce new truths into the deposit of the original faith, by the action of her own mind upon the original revelation ; when the ideas of congruity, ^

priori desirableness and suitableness, are made the tests of a development being true or false ; when the Apostles' Creed, held in the first ages to contain within it all necessary articles of the faith, is declared an incomplete summary and a mere sample of the more elementary parts of that faith ; when all this and much more is

propounded and justified in the name of develop- ment, no wonder that men should fear a word bearing so ill-omened a sound. For this theory implies that there is no fixity, no certainty. The truth which St. Jude said was once for all delivered to the saints, and the alteration of which St. Paul declared to make the innovator anathema, may be enlarged, amplified, extended, developed, till it is totally transformed into

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[iTRODUCTIOw.

something else from what it previously was, and absolutely contradictory of its original self ; nor can it be doubted that the theory implies that the apostles to whom our Lord addressed Himself in John xv. 15 were ignorant of

Christian truth, and were but babes in Christ, not full-grown men of perfect stature ; or else that they voluntarily kept back what they knew to be essentials of the faith from those to whom

thc) were sent to preach the gospel and make disciples of. Such an evolution of doctrine is pronounced by Dr. Mill " more to resemble the growth of Brahminical theology and science, from the dissimilar stock of the Vedas, as the Indian gymnosophists love to describe it, than the genuine developments of that faith which the apostles once for all planted in the earth."—/-". Meyrick, M.A.

[12262] There is a theory which makes

development to consist in Christianity casting off its luisk ami coinitvg forth in it- original brightness. When analyzed it seems to consist in the substitution of hazy fancies for the cover- ings which are the necessary forms of Christian doctrine, the said hazy fancies being paraded as the central idea. For example, the coming of Christ in the flesh is rationalized into the idea of the delivery of man by the Eternal Spirit through the manifestation of Himself, from the tyranny of the carnal principle ; His resurrection into the victory won, through suffering, by the higher principle in man over the lower ; and each of the other facts revealed in Scripture are made to be nothing else than a materialized representation of some spiritual truth, in a form capable of being apprehended by the gross minds of ordinary men. In short, the Gnostic theories are once more presented to us, and called a development of Christianity. As though the incarnation of the Son of God and His resurrection from the dead were not either facts or falsehoods, and as though, if they were facts once, they were not equally true and

important facts now, and as though, if they were false at first, they were worth troubling ourselves about any more than any other

mythical or poetical representations of bygone ages I — Ibid.

[12263] i*ut surely, it is said, the churches will never be content with a stereotyped theo- logy ; why shall theology not keep pace with the other sciences which arc making such re- markable progress? If the enemies of our confessional theology will only consent to con- duct their inquiries, even according to the method and spirit which have directed and developed the successes of secular science, we can assure them their reforming efforts will be most welcome. It is the habit, in scientific

inquiries, to recognize and accept certain prin- ciples as fixed and immutable beyond cavil or question, and not to allow an exceptional pheno- menon to derange these fixed laws or prim iplcs, and cast all loose again. We dcm.md, then,

that they should deal with theology, as they

deal with any widely accepted system of astro- nomical, or botanical science to which they

take exception ; they do not undervalue or reject botanical science because nature isuntechnical, informal, and free, or reject the demonstrations and discoveries of ewton and La Place, be- cause the telescope would be more free to range and sweep the heavens. The liberal theory im- plies, in fact, that we cannot tell what Chris-

tianity is, and that the Christians of eighteen centuries did not understand it : it palsies all preaching, reduces the guilt of unbelievers Ic an infinitesimal point, since the points of belief are so difficult to ascertain, makes it impossible for ministers to judge a heretic or cast him out for false doctrines, and nullifies the office of the Holy Spirit as the teacher of truth. — British and Foreign Evangelical Review, I S67.

(2) Those who deny the doctrine of develop- ment.

a. The denial is based on a misapprehension of the true doctrine.

[12264] The schoolmen warmly debated whether theology was a progressive science. The one side strenuously maintained the nega- tive, appealing triumphantly to the finality of Scripture, the unanimity of experience, and the closed canon. By the other side the victory

was claimed on the score of the steady improve- ment in Biblical interpretation, the gradual apprehension of doctrine, and the prevalent un- certainty upon many features of revealed truth. Before the discussion had proceeded far, it be- came evident that this was but another instance of the old story of the knight and the shield. Inquiry necessitated investigation, accurate in- vestigations resulted in more minutedistinctions, more refined distinctions disclosed shades of truth previously unsuspected, and the contro- versy solved itself. — A. Cave, D.A.

b. This denial is foolish when it is considered that some kind of progress is inevitable. [12265] ^o those who deny all progress it

may be replied that all that is contended for by the advocates of legitimate development is a loL^ical one, which draws conclusions by logical rules from premisses revealed in Scripture.

Such action of the human mind as this is recog- nized in the words, " may be proved thereby," in Church Article. If a conclusion necessarily follows from a fact or statement of Scripture, we are permitted to draw such conclusion ; and so, if from the great dogmas of Christianity there may be derived by necessary consequence other truths, we may accept them as having been implied or involved in the larger state- ment. Thus, from the doctrine of the Trinity there follows by necessary consequence the doctrine of consubstantiality of the Son, and of the personality of the Holy Ghost ; and in like manner, to take a negative instance, the condemnation of Monophysitism involved in itself the condemnation of Monothclitism, for there could not have been two perfect natures

CHRISTIA DOGMATICS.

[introduction.

in the Son unless there had been a will in each. —F. Meyrick, M.A.

3 Theology in the first age.

[12266] It would be folly to expect in that ase an integral system : we must be content to discover ide.is and tendencies. The harbinger of this Christian philosophy was Justin Martyr ; yet while in his writings we find whole sugges- tions, especially in his idea of the Xoyof mrtpfta- TiKos (v. Apollog. II.). which shows a perception of the unity of all philosophic truth, with him Christianity was rather a fuller revelation of doctrines, already known in part by the ancient mind, than of a central, supernatural fact of redemption. It is when we turn from his cruder reasonings to the works of Clement and Origea that we find the richest developments. Filled with the spirit of Christian faith, while nursed in the atmosphere of Greel; genius, their writ- ings are a mine of precious metal, as yet in the ore, but piercing the soil everywhere with broad veins, and its very sands heavy and shin- ing with grains of golden wisdom. Origen is greater and more sympathetic of the two. We have nothing to say here of his errors. The fallacy of critics, in judging their remains, has resulted from looking at them in the mass, and so pronouncing them a farrago of follies and

fancies. All the works of that age are what Clement called his Stromata, materials for a doctrinal edifice rather than the edifice itself It is not their views on particular doctrines that claim our attention ; it is only their fundamental ground as to the relation of Christianity to

reason ; and it is by our recognition of this their central aim that we must judge of the in- fluence of those great men. Clement, and yet

more, Origen, in his work :r£p< apx'^''' laid down this position, new to that age, that the Divine

revelation was the distinct source of all truths which concerned redemption ; that, while the speculative reason might range freely beyond the circle of these truths, within this it must bow in faith, and from this centre build up a Christian philosophy and ethics. It was thus a position, opposed on one side to the empiricism of the mere letter, on the other to the idealism which destroyed it. This was their work ; thus they laid the corner stone of a legitimate Chris- tian science, and this result they handed down to the ages after them. The rubbish and dross of Origen were cast aside ; the gold was refined into later and better wisdom. — E. A. Wash- burn, D.D.

4 Its development and progress when dete- riorated.

(1) ot altogether unserviceable to the truth. [12267] Almost all the great practical doc-

trines of the gospel, after having been presented in their purity by the apostles, were gradually

deteriorated, until they came to be almost entirely perverted ; and then, by the interposi- tion of God, they were rescued from the load of corruption under which they were buried, and exhibited anew in their original brightness.

During the whole period of declension, how- ever, these doctrines never ceased to be re- cognized. They were not only distinctly

apprehended and openly avowed by here and there a chosen witness, but they underlay the religious experience of thousands who never framed them into doctrinal propositions ; and they gave form and character to the very cor- ruptions of which they were the subjects. These corruptions were not so much errors

entirely foreign to the gospel, as perverted forms of truth. A leper is still a man ; and the linea- ments of the human form may be traced under all the disfiguring effects of disease. So the truth is always to be discerned under the

grossest corruptions to which it has been subject. When the Church of the middle ages taught

that there could be no regeneration or holiness but by means of certain rites, this was not a denial of the necessity of grace, but a false view of the mode and conditions of the Spirit's opera- tions. When it was taught that pilgrimages

and penances obtained the pardon of sins, it was still asserted that they were the me.ms of securing an interest in the Christ, to whom all their efficacy was referred. When the priest interposed himself between the sinner and God,

it was not that he dared to deny the priesthood of Christ, but that he assumed that Christ's priesthood was exercised through the church. Behind these fearful corruptions, therefore, which hid the truth from the view of the people, were still to be discerned the great doctrines of the Biljle. As this is true with regard to other points, it is no less true with regard to the doctrine of the church. All the corruptions of that doctrine, great and destructive as they