A new basis of belief in immortality / by John S. Farmer.

  • Farmer, John S.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A new basis of belief in immortality / by John S. Farmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    63/132 (page 61)
    INSriRATION AND REVJilLATION: NATURE AND SOURCE. CHAPTEE VI. INSPIRATION AND REVELATION : THEIR NATURE, AND SOURCE. The questions of Inspir.ation and Eevelation are as yet so hedged about by prejudice that few will be content to treat them upon their merits. Those who have had the temerity to do so, and have emancipated themselves from the unphilosophical claims with which the popular view of the question is weighted, and from a slavish and degraded letter-worship of the Word, have been speedily consigned to the limbo of heterodoxy. The Protestant Churches honour Luther for freeing them from the errors of the Eoman Church ; but, unless they are prepared to issue a bull of infallibility, they should not denounce those who, in their study of Holy Writ, exercise the fundamental principle of Protestantism—liberty of thought and interpretation. Protestantism and Eomanism both agree in this—the Bible was directly mspired by God, and is in itself a source of unmixed, unerring truth. The former asserts, however, that after the first century of the Christian Era the book of revelation was completed, and the fount of inspiration closed. Eoman Catholicism, on the other hand, though likewise asserting the completion of the written Word, still claims that the stream of inspiration has been continuously granted to the Catholic Church during the last seventeen centuries, but to no other. As to its continuance to the present time, the Mother Church is UU' doubtedly correct, but not so with regard to its limitation or in- dividualisation ; while both are somewhat mistaken as to the infallible nature of the record.* Making due allowance for the modifications resulting from the Ee- formation, and which were adopted only by the Protestant Churches, this belief has for the most part but a shallow foundation. It has simply been taken for granted because it has been the teaching of the Church from the Council of Nice downwards. She has claimed for her- self, and herself alone, the custody and interpretation of the written word ; and, to cast a doubt upon this venerable belief is, to many, equivalent to denying Scriptural truth altogether. PLENARY INSPIRATION. The belief in the Plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures—the originals and King James’ translation also—is tenaciously clung to by the majority of Christians. Such a method of interpretation has only led to innumerable absurdities, and has consequently been abandoned by the most intelligent Biblical scholars for a more reasonable standpoint. 'i he^ is hardly any preconceived idea or position for which texts may not be found—as far as the mere letter goes—as authority. The vilest excrescences of human nature have by this means established their claims by appealing to the Bible. Interpret many passages with rigid accuracy, and without regard to context, by this doctrine of verbal in- spiration, and you may convict the Scriptures of startling inconsis- toucics ; let, however, the general tenor be taken and read in the light * See previous chapter, page 47.