AUTHORITY OF TEXTS.
(TO THE EDITOR OF THE " EPROTATOR.") SIR,—I beg to thank you and your correspondents for your courteous and very interesting comments upon my letter. I cannot allow that my remarks were not to the point. Whatever gave occasion to the discussions in your pages and in the Nine- teenth Century, those who took part in it did, in fact, I submit, by the line of argument they adopted, cover the larger subject to which my letter referred.
I shall be glad if you can allow me space for a few remarks upon Scripture exegesis, suggested by your articles. The subject is of great present importance.
Let me repeat, first, that what I principally objected to in the article on " The Root of all Evil' " was not the views its writer took of its subject (I should not have objected to them, or to your subsequent exposition of our Lord's teaching on riches and their use), but the want of due deference, as it seems to me, to the teach- ing of St. Paul implied in taking his words as the text of the article, and then simply putting them aside without apology. Were any of us to do the same by any even incidental dictum of Faraday's on chemistry, or of Huxley's on physiology, would it not be thought arrogant ? The instincts that guide a great man's, or an " expert's," or still more, an inspired man's judgment on ques- tions relating to their special studies are surely far more trust- worthy and deserve more respect than those of ordinary men. Even the alter dicta of St. Paul on morals deserve deference• from every Christian, I think I might say even from every student of the subject.
On the question of the authority of single texts relatively to. the general drift of the Bible teaching, allow me a few words. Doubtless it is common, in England especially, to treat " texts " deplorable dissociation from their contexts, and from the drift of inspired teaching in general. Were a man to go into a garden,. and tearing up its living flowers, and cutting them into polygonal fragments, dry them in a herbarium, and then, shaking them arbitrarily, as in a kaleidoscope, bid us look at the- resulting patterns, as a true picture of the flowers in the- garden, he would hardly misrepresent the living garden more than expositors often do the divine teaching of Holy Scrip- ture. But our Lord continually in his teaching authorises.
us in considering the teaching of Holy Scripture as a progressive course, respecting which we have, as Christians, the right, and with it the duty, to judge of the relative importance of the several: parts, correcting the earlier precepts in the light of later and more perfect revelations ; and in believing that " of our own selves,'
we ought to " judge what is right." In very remarkable words—
seldom, if ever, I think, rightly interpreted—his last answer to the Pharisees and Scribes in the courts of the Temple (Matt. xxii., 41-45), after showing in detail, in answer to their charges, that he had not contradicted the teaching of Moses or of the ancient seers, he proceeded to show, by appealing to a saying which they all attributed to David, and understood to be spoken by him of the Christ, that David himself acknowledged that while the Christ should be his son, he should also be his Lord. Hence even if be, as the Christ, had in any particular point overruled any precept or interpretation of the elder seers, he had the right, by their own confession, to do so..
What could be a more suitable saying with which to conclude his public teaching in the ancient Temple, then so soon to be swept from the earth ? It implies that while the Christian is indeed in a true sense the child of the Jewish revelation, it is also its
superior, and may, as in fact it does, rule its interpretation and set aside some of its teaching. It is in accordance with this that.
St. Paul says that it is only when read in the " faith which is in Christ Jesus," and in the light of that faith, that the ancient " Scriptures " are " able to make us wise to salvation."
But are we justified in setting up another standard, in the light . of which we are to allow ourselves to correct the teaching of Apostles, or even that which men whom we all allow to have been, in some respects, inspired, attribute to Christ himself? Is not this a very perilous course upon which to enter ? May it not issue in making Christ and his Apostles sit at our feet, rather than we at theirs ? Of course, I am not disputing the just claims of careful and reverent criticism in the work of dis- covering the original teaching of Prophets and Apostles. But do not men often substitute the instincts of their " common-sense as the ultimate Court of appeal, for one composed of really com-
petent and reverent judges and critics ? The wonderful audacity of Ewald, for instance, in this kind of criticism is known to all his readers. It is related of him that having been present at a.
discussion upon the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, at which the decisions of various learned professors had been cited, he con- cluded it with these words :—" There are wise professors, and there are unwise, but I know that John wrote it." Are not many men in danger of dogmatism of this kind, which may very probably have the effect of making us disciples of ourselves, or of the communis senses of England in the nineteenth century, rather than of Christ ?—I am, Sir, &c., [Mr. Lyttelton carefully avoids saying whether or not ho does- ascribe great authority to all the admitted sayings of either Jewish. or Christian teachers,—to St. Paul's clear teaching, for instance, that the end of the world is at hand, or his hasty denunciation of Alexander the Coppersmith, or his teaching as to women's head- dresses. Yet this is the real issue between us. If what is called inspired' teaching can be shown to have been really erroneous at times,—and to our minds, St. Paul freely admitted that much of his teaching was not founded on revelation at all,—then we do not see how a mere isolated text, written obviously in a rhetorical vein, and out of harmony with the general tenour of the Christian revelation, should even give us pause.'—En. Spectator.)
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