THE ANDOVER REVIEW A RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL VOL. IV.-JULY-DECEMBER.-1885 PROFESSORS JOHN P. GULLIVER, JOHN PHELPS TAYLOR, HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 1885 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, The Seventy-fifth Anniversary of the, 355; Andover Review for 1886, The, 586; Christian Union and the Unity of the Church, 68; England's Injustice to Mr. Gladstone, 71; Missionary Idea, The Growth of the, 477; New Guinea, The Par- tition of, 264; Preacher of Righteousness, A, 581; Progressive Orthodoxy. III. The Atonement, 56; Progressive Orthodoxy. IV. Eschatology, 143; Progressive Orthodoxy. V. The Work of the Holy Spirit, 256; Progressive Orthodoxy. VI. The Christian, 345; Progressive Orthodoxy. VII. The Scriptures, 456; Progressive Orthodoxy. VIII. Conclusion. Christianity Absolute and Uni- versal, 568; "The Relation of Congregational Churches to their Theological Seminaries,” 247 ; THE ANDOVER REVIEW: A RELIGIOUS AND THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY. VOL. IV.-JULY, 1885. —No. XIX. THE QUESTION RESTATED. In the discussion of difficult questions, especially if they make a strong appeal to natural human feeling or have become somewhat artificially connected with important human interests, nothing is more indispensable than to have such questions lucidly and definitely stated. To the eye of reason, as to the eye of sense, an image cannot be correctly interpreted unless it be first clearly formed. Even prejudiced persons are sometimes ready to pass judgment against their own favorite opinions when some new statement of the conclusions which these opinions involve reveals for the first time what is the real meaning of them. On the other hand, it is rarely possible to secure any approach toward an unprejudiced answer to a difficult question, from one who has never even stated for himself precisely that question to the exclusion of other questions that might be mistaken for it. Reflections like those made above are particularly pertinent at the present time with reference to certain much mooted theological questions; and among them all perhaps to none more so than to the question of "the inspiration of the Bible." Even the common usage of the term "inspiration" both embodies and reveals the truth of which I am speaking. The very word has come to be restricted in theological circles so as to occasion much confusion, not say some mischief and loss to the cause of right and safe thinking. Led on by this usage, new writers continue to argue as though the traditional term, together with the traditional assumption which it implies, must be made to comport with the newly discovered facts of physical, psychological, historical, and critical science. The result of such trials is in each case a so-called theory of inspiration; and by "theory of inspiration" is generally understood some subtle and occult way of explaining how the time-hon to Copyright, 1885, by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co. |