It would be honest, and prove the existence of a love of truth, if every preacher of every denomination spent as much time in trying the value of his text-book, as he does now in expounding it and explaining it away.
We should imagine that a minister loved truth, if he were first to ask himself how he treats the Vedas and Puranas, the Avesta, the Koran, the Apocryphal Gospels, the Apocrypha, the Book of Mormon, the visions and prophecies of "Latter-day saints," "Friends," Roman visionaries, and the oracles delivered at Delphi and elsewhere, and then to treat his own book with the same measure as he used with the others.
On the other hand, we should regard him as untruthful and dishonest, if he weighed the books and belief of others with weights and scales different to those with which he tried his own.
From each minister of religion the people have a right to demand an impartial inquiry into the absolute value of the doctrines which he teaches, and an investigation into the foundation, as well as the superstructure; and they may require, still further, that he, like Great-heart in Bunyan's story, shall do battle with assailants. When such a leader professes to fight, but always avoids the shock of battle, he cannot be regarded either as honest, or as comparable with Valiant-for-truth in the Pilgrim's Progress.
We are then, as laymen, justified in requiring that our spiritual leaders shall take a conspicuous part in examining the grounds of the faith which they teach, and that the leaders of the Established Church shall seek to establish its doctrine upon as firm basis as it is possible to obtain.
This certainly involves inquiry and discussion upon those points which modern criticism has prominently advanced.
When we turn to the "Prayer Book," we find that Deacons are required to say, that they unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures. Priests are obliged to affirm that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ, &c. In the consecration of bishops the same, or nearly the same, formula is gone through. Thus, at the outset of their career, the ministers of the Church of England commit themselves to, or are required by law to make, a declaration which will preclude inquiry into the value of the book on which their teaching is founded; their first step in the ministry puts it out of their power to be honest, if experience should teach them more than they knew when young. The bishops and priests, however, when they subscribe to the opinion that the Bible contains all things necessary for salvation, do not pledge themselves to the belief that every sentence, part, division, book, or arrangement of the Canonical Scriptures is, and must of necessity be, true. Even in the dawn of ecclesiastical information in England, there was not a belief in the verbal inspiration of the Bible.
Of late years, when habits of thought and the art of printing have increased, the knowledge, and consequently, the power of the laity disproportionally to the advance made by clerics—a strong propensity to accumulate facts, and to argue thereupon has been very generally developed, and the increased information obtained has induced steadily increasing numbers to doubt, not only the verbal inspiration, but even the historical truth of the Scriptures. When this difficulty occurred, or rather, when it became recognized, scholars, no matter whether they were professional or amateur ecclesiastics, divided themselves involuntarily (we may fairly say, unknowingly, inasmuch as each individual worked quite independently, in the first place, of another) into those who believed that, if the Holy Spirit dictated the Scriptures, he must have seen that his amanuensis wrote correctly; those who imagined that the Bible was to be taken "in the lump;" and those who considered that the Scriptures are entirely of human origin, and absolutely valueless as a guide of faith. Consequently, three schools have arisen, two of which are essentially ecclesiastic. Of these, one regards all inquiry into the accepted text as improper, the other considers that everything should be done to verify the value of the so-called original Scripture.
Amongst the latter, Dr Colenso, Bishop of Natal, stands out conspicuously. Of the highest intellectual attainments, trained to close and scientific inquiry; able, far better than men of meaner capacity, to weigh the value of "evidence," whether "ancient or modern," he has drawn the conclusion that the Bible is not what it is generally supposed to be; in other words, that its historical portions are not trustworthy, and that there is grave reason to believe its writings to have been produced for a purpose, which involved dishonesty in the scribe, and in the promulgator of his writings. The learned doctor was honest in his investigation, and fearless in announcing his conclusions.
As an upright man, the Bishop of Natal is as completely justified in his inquiry into the validity or importance of an ancient book, alleged to be a pearl of great price, a gem or diamond of the first water, as the official curator of a museum would be, in determining whether a certain ruby, given into his charge, were real or artificial. Of the necessity of such an inquiry, the following anecdote, which was told me by the gentleman concerned, will convince the reader:—