THE NEW PREFACE TO "LUX MUNDI." *
WE have travelled a long way since the days of the so-called "Oxford declaration," when so many prelates and dignitaries of the Church signed a declaration that the Bible "not only contains but is the Word of God." Mr. Gore, in his new preface to Luz lifundi, very justly remarks on Professor Huxley's obsolete ideas of Christianity as the religion of a book. But whatever Professor Huxley's shortcomings in that way may be, they were, we think, more than suggested, they -were almost forced upon him as describing the view taken by the orthodox divines of the English Church, by the language of that unfortunate "Oxford declaration." Mr. Gore further -expresses his opinion in this preface to the ninth edition of the book he has edited, that "since the division of Christendom, no part of the Church appears really to have tightened the bond of dogmatic obligation," and refers to "the refusal of the Homan Church to define the scope of inspiration beyond the region of faith and morals," as "remarkable." But whatever may be admitted as to the new tendency at Rome to soften down the drift of the word "inspiration," we must say that both the Tridentine and the Vatican decrees on the subject did either " tighten " very considerably the bonds of dogmatic obligation, or else used the word inspiration" in a sense which was very non-natural at the time. When men were told that the books of Scripture were "inspired in all their parts," -and that God was their " auctor," that surely could hardly have conveyed to any human being at the time that only their teaching on the subjects of faith and morals was absolutely divine, and that with regard to historic facts they might be full of important inaccuracies and inconsistencies. We do not think it can be denied that the tendency to play with the word "inspiration" so as to make it mean now much less than it did mean to the vast majority of those who lived at the time of the Council of Trent, much less even than it did mean to the vast majority of those who lived at the time of the Council of the Vatican, is not a satisfactory way of getting over this kind of difficulty. We would much rather say that the Church which so defined the authority of the books of Scripture was not infallible but mistaken, and that whatever authority it had once had to speak in the name of -God, had evidently been withdrawn at the time it so spoke, than make the Church "keep the word of promise to the ear and break it to the heart," by putting an entirely new gloss on the drift of a word which was sufficiently well understood and very differently understood at the time it was so used.
However, we do not at all differ from Mr. Gore's doctrine as to the sense in which Scripture may be said to teach divine truth, and, perhaps, nothing but divine truth. That sense is, that it always showed the generation of men to whom it was addressed the right direction, the right path of progress, the way that led to God, and that it did this as much for the rudest state of human society delineated in Scripture as for the most advanced ; that, above all, the fulfilment of all the functions of Scripture is to be found in the person of Christ, and that when that fulfilment was reached, the temporary pur- pose of the less perfect teaching of the older times,—though perhaps as perfect as those times could bear,—was merged lathe completed purpose represented in the life and teaching of our Lord. That is very good. doctrine, but it is not the sort of doctrine which will at all satisfy the older kind of Biblical -orthodoxy. As regards Christ's own teaching, we heartily agree with Mr. Gore that there does not seem, in fact, "any • Preface to the Ninth Edition of" Dar Mundi." Together with an Appendix on "" The Christian Doctrine of fiin." London John Murray.
greater difficulty in His speaking of one who wrote in the spirit and power of Moses,' as Moses, than in His speaking of one who according to the prophecy came 'in the spirit and power of Elias,' as himself Elias. If you will receive it, this is Elias." Elias is already come."
Mr. Gore's view as stated in this new preface is, that our Lord's human nature, when he exercised his function as teacher, was never fallible; but we do not suppose that he would regard our Lord as exercising his function RB teacher when he was questioning the doctors at twelve years of age, or when he was asking his disciples, "Who touched me ? " Nothing seems to us more certain than that our Lord's humanity was as confessedly and clearly limited in range and knowledge as that of any other equally devout Jew of his time, and that when he predicted the future, or used his divine gifts as healer, that human nature was flooded by power from the divine nature into which it had been taken, and was then and there emancipated from the ordinary limitations of that humanity.
Mr. Gore adds in this new preface a very striking passage from St. Chrysostom, showing that, in that father's belief, God even condescended to the astrological conceptions of the time. when he led the wise men by a star to the birthplace of Christ :—
"St. Chrysostom is explaining why God should have appealed to the astrological notions of the wise men and led them by no other leading than that of a star. It is because in exceeding
condescension he calls them through what is familiar In imitation of this Paul too reasons with the Greeks from an altar, and adduces testimony from the poets, while he harangues the Jews with circumcision, and makes from the sacrifices a beginning of instruction for those who are living under the law. For since to every one familiar things are dear, therefore both God Himself and the men who were sent from God, with a view to the salvation of the world, manage things on this principle. Think it not then unworthy of Him to have called them by a star ; for by the same rule thou wilt find fault with all the Jewish rites also—both the sacrifices and the purifications and the new moons, and the ark, and the temple itself. For all these things had their origin from Gentile grossness. Yet God, on account of the salvation of those in error, endured to be worshipped by means of the very things through which those outside were worshipping demons, only giving them a slight alteration, that little by little he might draw them away from their customs and lead them up to the high philosophy.' Now if we recognise that God in the Old Testament can condescend for the purposes of His revelation to a low stage of conscience, and a low stage of worship, what possible ground have we for denying that He can use for purposes of His inspira- tion literary methods also which belong to a rude and undeveloped state of intelligence ? If He can 'inspire' with true teaching the native Semite customs of ritual, why can He not do the same with their traditions of old time ? How can we reasonably deny that the earlier portions of Genesis may contain the simple record of primitive prehistoric tradition of the Semites, moulded and used by the Holy Spirit, as on all showing the record manifestly has been moulded and used, to convey the fundamental principles of all true religion ? "
That is a very striking illustration of the freedom with which some of the older fathers accepted the progressive element in Revelation ; but the Church which put forth the decrees of Trent and of the Vatican, and the Anglican dignitaries who signed the "Oxford declaration," were not acting at all in the spirit of such a doctor as St. Chrysostom, and were placing stumbling-blocks in the way of that natural and healthy criticism of Scripture which not all the ingenuity of the modern Roman Catholic or the modern Anglican would be able satisfactorily to remove.
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