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natural" . . . ) the Resurrection; ( “the question at issue relates to a detail, thè actual resuscitation of the body of our Lord from the tomb. The accounts that have come down to us seem to be too conflicting and con fused to prove this” ( Sanday, p. 20) and the Ascension (“1 do not think that the evidence is sufficient to con vince us that the physical elevation of the Lord’s Body really happened as an external objective fact” (Sanday, p. 15) ; and Streeter adds—“I know of no living theologian who would maintain a physical Ascension,” i. e., in the same sense of a physical body rising into heaven.’A—Foundation, p. 132. In brief, Professor Sanday and some of the leading exponents of the modern Anglicanism, Fellows and Deans of Colleges, frankly declare that they and a great body with them do not accept the Creed of the Church, and the teaching of the Church of England as set forth in the 2nd and 3rd Articles—the Son, the Word of the Father, the Very and Eternal God, took man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, and Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again His body, with flesh, bones, and all things pertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, where with He ascended into heaven ! In a word, what was once the abhorrent monopoly of the atheists and the ra tionalists seems now to have become the profession of unbelief on the part of outstanding Churchmen. HARD TO ANALYZE. It is somewhat difficult to analyze the reason of this departure from the old paths, but it may be said that the causes are possibly these : First of all, and back of it all, down deep beneath it all, is unquestionably the letting go of the divinenéss of the Scriptures and the habit of regarding them as more or less human records. The at
titude of the modern theologian to the Bible is practically, identical with that of the former-day rationalists. It is handled precisely as any other book. There doesn’t seem to be the faintest trace of their accepting as a categor ical postulate “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The a priori method of the believer who brings with him into the investigation of the Bible the belief that the Bible is the Word of God, and the Scriptures the Holy Scriptures, has passed, and there has come instead the a priori method of the modernist who comes to his investigation of the Bible and theol ogy with the philosophic prejudice, against the miraculous and ; the lib eral hatred of all that is orthodox and traditional. (Sanday, p. 26.) Another thing is the extraordinary supremacy of German thought and the incredible deference to German critical scholarship on the part of English-speaking theologians of all names and degrees. Dr. Sanday is not the only one who has dared to leap into the limelight as their cham pion. “It is surely a fact of some significance that the Protestant schol ars of the foremost nation of the world for penetrating thoughtfulness, thoroughness and technical knowl edge, should have arrived with a con siderable degree of unanimity just at this kind of conclusion.” “Germany has been at work on these problems for more than a century, like a hive of bees.” For anyone who had read even such a work as Loofs’ “What is the Truth about Jesus Christ?” must come to the conclusion that much of the talk, about newest evi dence and latest scientific research, and the historical investigation of thè recent facts regarding the texts of the gospels and the teachings and miracles of Jesus, is simply German credulity. They take all the theories of the infidels from the days of Por phyry to Cels’is, Strauss to Baur
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