The Dean of Norwich, the Dean of St. Paul's, Archdeacon
Denison, and the other clergymen who signed the remarkable -document published in Friday's Times on the inspiration of the Bible, hardly know how much serious harm they may do -to the cause they intend to support by such publications, though their intention is to show by it their loyalty to the orthodox faith. What they in effect say is, that there is not, and cannot be, any contradictions in the canonical Scriptures even as to matters of fact, however contradictory the accounts may seem to us, because these accounts have the authority of God, and what may seem absolutely impossible to us is possible to God. But if that be so, why is it that learned and pious men, who show in every way their anxiety to accept God's revelation, are not able to say what it is that he has revealed through these infallible Scriptures, and ask whether our Lord's authority, for instance, is given to the Greek transla- tion of the Hebrew Scriptures, which is the one quoted by the Evangelists, or to the Hebrew version itself, of which we have no early manuscript at all? A revelation which may mean one thing or may mean another, without any human scholar being able to say what it means, is not the kind of guide which is likely to subdue all doubt as to the significance and drift of God's Word. Documents like the one we refer to will make ten people question the clear-headedness or candour of the clergy who sign it, for every one, if there be any one, in whom it extinguishes a germ of doubt. A moderately in- structed man could hardly help saying that such teachers as the signatories to this document announce themselves as in- competent either to learn or to teach.
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