Some Thoughts on the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. By
the Rev. Robert Eden, MA., late Fellow of C.C.C., Oxon, Honorary Canon of Norwich, and Vicar of Wymondham. (B. M. Pickering.)—We wel- come this contribution to the great religions controversy of the day, not so much on account of the views which it enforces as of the spirit of moderation and charity in which it is written. A. sincere desire to arrive at truth breathes through every page of it. It is a wonderful advance on the compositions which writers of the orthodox schools were sending forth by the dozen two years ago. Mr. Eden at least sees that much of the challenging of the received teaching as to the inspiration of Scripture is "due to the extremes of unwarranted assertion to which the Church has been for some years drifting on the great points of the nature and extent of Biblical antaority." And when once this is per- ceived, the work of the "higher criticism" is well nigh done. The orthodox school will have to yield more ground than Mr. Eden can con- cede, for he still starts from the dogmatic assumption that "Inspiration which is really such must exclude the idea of essential error." But the higher criticism has also its own assumptions, which are equally ground- less. Meanwhile we hail every honest and temperate attempt to deduce the extent and quality of inspiration from the Bible itself.
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