The defence of Professor Briggs before the Presbytery of New York, December 13, 14, 15, 19, and 22, 1892.

Contents

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

PAGES

(1) A court of Jesus Christ ; (2) The character of the argument of the prosecution ; (3) The serious charges not offered for probation ; (4) The unlawful use of the proofs from Holy Scripture and the Standards ; (5) The contempt of court in the argument upon Charges IV. and VII. ; (6) The neglect of the Standards of the Church ; (7) The evidence from the writings of the defendant ; (8) The prosecution have no case, .... vii-xx

II

In order to save valuable time, I shall venture to consider Charges I. and II. together. This may be done with propriety for several reasons: (1) They both relate to the same general subject, na^mely, ^' fountains of divine authority." (2) They both assert the same essential doctrines of Holy Scripture and the Standards to which my teachings are alleged to be contrary. (3) They both cite the same passages from Holy Scripture and from the Standards of the Church in evidence.

The charges differ in two respects: (1) in several citations from the Inaugural Address; (2) in the statements of doctrines taught by me. I shall therefore consider first of all that which is common to the two charges, and afterward what is special under each of them.

The charges have three parts*: (1) the doctrines stated as the essential doctrine of the Holy Scriptures and the Standards of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America ; (2) the doctrines attributed to me; and (3) the charge that the doctrines attributed to me "are contrary to the said essential doctrines."

Let us test these three parts in their order.

(1) The essential doctrine of our standards is said to be. "that the Holy Scripture is most necessary, and the rule of faith and practice."

It is plain that two doctrines are here stated. The two doctrines are (1) "that the Holy Scripture is most necessary," and (2) "the rule of faith and practice." These two doctrines might have been embraced under a more general statement of doctrine if the prosecution had chosen to do so. But in fact they state them as two different doctrines. You have decided to try them together, but to vote on each charge separately.

I admit that the doctrine, " that Holy Scripture is the rule of faith and practice," is an essential doctrine of our Standards and of Holy Scripture. There is no evidence required to pro\e that proposition in the Charge. I admit that the doctrine that " Holy Scripture is most necessary" is a doctrine of the Westminster Confession. I am not prepared to admit that the statement of that doctrine in the Westminster Confession is essential in the form of its expression. But whether it be essential or not, is immaterial. I do not care to argue that question, for the reason that I firmly believe that " Holy Scripture is most necessary " in that exposition of the phrase which the contextand the language demand. I subscribe to both of these doctrines entirely, sincerely, and without any reservation whatever. But it is evident that there is a difference of interpretation of these two doctrines between the prosecution and the defendant. They have the right to prove that their interpretation is the necessary interpretation, and that my interpretation is the incorrect interpretation. They have given you no such proof; I have now the right to give you the correct interpretation of these phrases. I shall consider the evidence offered from Holy Scripture at this stage, the evidence from our Standards later on. The question to be determined in our study of these passages of Scripture is simpl}^ this. Do they show that Holy Scripture is the rule of faith and practice, or that Holy Scripture is most necessary, and in what sense?

(1) Is. viii. 20 was shown to be irrelevant in my Response last year. I renew my objection to it as follows :

The passage is incorrectly translated in the version used, for the meaning "there is no light in them," is not justified. The 'Revised Version renders " surely there is no morning for them," they have no hope of a dawn of brighter things. The proper rendering is :

" When they say unto you, Seek unto the necromancers and unto wizards ; " Ye chirpers and mutterers, should not a people seek unto their God ? " On behalf of the living will they seek unto the dead for instruction and for testimony?

" If they say not so, who have no dawn, " etc.

This- passage has no reference whatever to the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them ; but is a rebuke of the people of Judah for seeking necromancers and wizards, rather than the living God (pp. 44, 45) .

They are not warned against seeking God in the forms of the Reason or the Church. They are not taught that Holy Scripture is most necessary, or that Holy Scripture is the rule of faith and practice. The prosecution insist upon the rendering of King James' Version and upon the reference to Holy Scripture. But the Church has not indorsed their version or their interpretation, and you cannot insist upon them as tests of orthodoxy.

"Every one therefore who shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. "

Our Saviour here tells His disciples what may be expected in the final day of judgment. Then those who have confessed Christ will be confessed before the Father and those who have denied Christ will be denied. This passage has nothing whatever to do with the mode in which Christ becomes known, whether through Bible, Church, or Reason. Jesus does not assert that Holy Scripture is most necessary, but that confession of Him is most necessary. He has nothing to say about those who neither confess nor deny Him through lack of knowledge of Christ. The denial here spoken of is the antithesis of confession. It is not the attitude of the careless or indifferent, or of those who have not yet been convinced of the Messiahship of Jesus or of the divine authority of Holy Scripture. It is solely and alone of those who have definitely examined the claims of Christ and have deliberately and finally denied Him before men. If the prosecution think that Martineau is such a man, I do not agree with them. But I agree with them as to the fact that all those who thus deny Christ will be denied of Christ in the judgment. Now I ask the court whether I am to be condemned simply on the spider's web of connection that any one may see between this text and the experience of Martineau? Have I said in my Inaugural that men may so deny Christ and be saved? I have not.

" But Abraham saith, They have Moses and the prophets ; let them hear them. And he said, Nay, Father Abraham : but if one go to them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise from the dead. "

It is difficult to see the relevancy of this passage. It is doubtless a true reflection of Abraham that the one who refused to hear Moses and the prophets, that is, the witness of the Old Testament Scriptures, would not be persuaded to hear one who rose from the dead. And yet Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and we have the New Testament Scriptures in addition to the Old Testament Scriptures. As the sufficiency of the Old Testament Scriptures did not obstruct the resurrection of Christ and the giving of the New Testament Scriptures, why should the sufficiency of the whole Bible prevent men from finding God also in the forms of the Church and the Reason?

If Holy Scripture is most necessary, according to this passage, then it is Moses and the prophets that were most necessary. But are the prophets so necessary that we have no need of apostles? Is Moses so necessary that we have no need of Christ? If not, then the passage does not prove most necessary to the exclusion of other things, as the prosecution would prove from their use of the phrase "mpst necessary."

"Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life ; and these are they which bear witness of me. "

The reference here is to the Old Testament Scriptures and to them alone.

The Old Testament Scriptures, certainly bear witness of Christ, but that is not to say that the New Testament Scriptures may not bear witness of Him, or that the Church may not bear witness of Him, or that the Holy Spirit may not bear witness of Him in the heart, in the forms of the Reason.

(5) John xiv. 6 :

" Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life : no one Cometh unto the Father, but by me. "

Jesus is the way to God, and, indeed, the only way, because He is the only mediator between God and man. But that does not imply that all men shall have the same intellectual apprehension of Jesus or the same doctrine of His person, His offices, and His work. It does not tell us the way to Jesus. Holy Scripture is a way to Jesus. This passage does not tell us so, and there is nothing in this passage to show that the Church and the Reason are not also ways to the Son of God. It matters little how we get to the way, if only we are in the way — so it matters little how we get to Jesus, if Jesus is only our way to God. Will any of you undertake to say that Martineau is not in this way? Or, if you do, will you convict me of heresy because I cannot agree with you as to the question of fact?

(6) I. John V. 10 is cited by the prosecution in King James' Version :

" He that beheveth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself : he that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. "

This passage was tested in the Response last year. I repeat what was then said :

" If one turn to the original Greek he will see that the translation, 'believeth not the record that God gave of his Son,' does not correspond with the original, which reads 'witness,' and that witness is not Holy Scripture either in whole or in part. The passage is therefore irrelevant to the specification, to prove that I am in error in teaching that Martineau found divine certainty through the Reason. In that this passage of Holy Scripture teaches a direct and immediate testimony of God within a man without the mediation of Holy Scripture, it rather favors the doctrine that God may, as in the time of the apostles, pursue this direct method with some men in our days" (pp. 45, 46).

"As we have said before, so say I now again, If any man preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which ye received, let him be anathema. "

I know not what the prosecution would prove from this passage. But let me call your attention to the fact that the apostle speaks of the gospel of Jesus Christ, not of a system of dogma. I fear lest the prosecution may unconsciously confound the two, and so think that because Martineau does not accept their dogmatic system or the dogmatic system of the modern Evangelical party, he has rejected the gospel and substituted another gospel for it. But they present no evidence that this is the case. It is true that Martineau does not accept our canonical gospels in all respects, but it is evident that the apostle is not alluding to the canonical gospels in this passage. It is doubtful whether any gospel had yet been written when he wrote these words. The apostle is referring to the gospel as the glad tidings of salvation in Jesus Christ which he himself preached as an apostle of Jesus Christ. The apostle is not thinking even of his own theology, which at the early date when he wrote this epistle was still in process of formation ; but he is stating the essential doctrine of salvation which in this epistle he is so grandly setting forth over against the J udaizers. But where do I recognize another gospel than the gospel preached by Paul? Where do I justify Martineau or any one else preaching another gospel? I cannot preach the doctrines advocated by the prosecution, or those of the school of theology to which they are attached ; for they are not the gospel. I will not say that they, like those Judaizers, are insisting upon a different gospel, " which is not another, " any more than I will say it of Martineau ; but I venture to suggest that they are getting into dangerous proximity with that different gospel, if they persist in maintaining that the doctrines of their school of theology are essential parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(8) II. Timothy, iii. 15-17 :

"And that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise iinto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness : that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. "

I called attention in my Response last year to the fact that this passage is cited from King James' Version, and said : " But the Revised Version renders, 'Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. ' There is a difference of doctrine here which is of some importance in the use of this text for purposes of probation" (p. 45) .

As correctly rendered it teaches the profitableness of every inspired Scripture ; it does not teach the unprofitableness of the Church and the Reason.

" And we have the word of prophecy made more sure ; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts : knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man ; but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost. "

This passage tells us that the Old Testament prophets were moved, driven, or impelled by the Holy Spirit in their prophecy ; that their word of prophecy has been made more sure to us ; and that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation ; but it does not tell us that the Reason or the Church are not great fountains of divine authority. It does not tell us that men cannot find God through the Reason or the Church. We may ask. How else were the prophets moved, driven, or impelled except by the Holy Spirit acting in the forms of their Reason? And if the Holy Spirit communicated the word of prophecy and the divine authority to proclaim that word to the prophets in the forms of their Reason, why may not the Holy Spirit communicate to other men divine guidance and certitude through the forms of the Reason, even if He does not call them to be prophets and give them a word of revelation?

We have examined the nine passages from Holy Scripture cited by the prosecution. Some of them establish the doctrine that Holy Scripture is most necessary, which doctrine we do not deny. But none of them are in conflict with the declarations made in the Inaugural. The prosecution in their argument use four additional passages. Acts viii. 32-35 ; x. 35 seq. ; xvii. 10 seq. ; xix. 1-7. These refer to the experience of the Ethiopian, Cornelius, the Bereans, and Apollos in their acceptance of Christ. Their experience proves that Holy Scripture was most necessary to them, in that it was necessary that their lower stage of religious experience should advance to the higher stage of Christianity ; but it does not prove that the unwritten but oral gospel of Christ was necessary to them in the sense that they could not have been in a state of grace and salvation without it. It is well known that these were all pious men, worshipping God as He had been revealed to them, and were prepared to accept Christ, and did accept Him as soon as Christ was made known to them. They present no evidence, therefore, of the proposition of the prosecution that Holy Scripture is the only fountain of divine authority. And you have no right to consider them as against me even if I have failed in convincing you of their irrelevancy, because Scripture can only be used by the prosecution to establish the essential doctrine set forth in the Charge. They cannot be legally used to prove that my declarations are erroneous, as you have already determined in sustaining my preliminary objection. I am not obliged to defend my Inaugural against these extracts from Holy Scripture and Confession, as you have already ruled. I am simply and alone called upon to defend myself against the allegation that my declarations are against the two essential doctrines mentioned in the Charge, namely, that "Holy Scripture is most necessary," and that "Holy Scripture is the rule of faith and practice."

The prosecution have no right to use Holy Scripture and Confession in these charges further than to prove these two essential doctrines. They cannot use these passages against my declaration without violating the law of process in our Church. You cannot use these passages against me and con-- demn me on their account without a violation of the obligation you assumed when you undertook to sit as jurors in this case, and of the ruling of the Presbytery itself before the argument began.

(2) The doctrines attributed to me are as follows : (A) " The Reason is a fountain of divine authority, which may and does savingly enlighten men, even such men as reject the Scriptures as the authoritative proclamation of the will of God and reject also the way of salvation through the mediation and sacrifice of the Son of God as revealed therein."

{B) " The Church is a fountain of divine authority which, apart from the Holy Scripture, may and does savingly enlighten men."

(a) The prosecution are obliged to prove these doctrines in their specifications, by extracts from the Inaugural. There are two specifications under each charge. These specifications consist of four groups of extracts from the Inaugural. These extracts are properly proofs of some fact that the prosecution should state. But what do they propose to prove? They do not tell us in their specifications. If the extracts are statements of fact such as the law of specification requires, where are the proofs of the fact? If they are proofs, where are the statements of fact?

(b) But suppose we take them as both facts and proofs of fact, inasmuch as they are extracts from the Inaugural. We are then obliged to consider the question of their relevancy to the charge. I am obliged to admit these extracts, and you are obliged to vote that the specifications are true so far as the extracts are concerned. But what is it that they prove? How are you to bring them under the charge? Consider the effect of these extracts upon the several members of the court. I take it that my statement that " Martineau could not find divine authority in the Church or the Bible, but did find God enthroned in his own soul," is objectionable to many of you,. You may think me guilty of error or of indiscretion in making such a statement. You might desire to condemn me on that account. Would you then be justified in voting to sustain the charge for that reason? On consideration you will see that there are several links in a chain of argument before you can attach this statement about Martineau to the doctrine attributed to me. You ought to test all the links of this chain before you can honorably condemn me as guilty of the charge. This testing ought to be made under the specification. The only way to accomplish this under present circumstances is to insert in these specifications the doctrine attributed to me in the charge, i.e.:

" In an Inaugural Address, which the said Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D. , delivered at tlie Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, January 20th, 1891, on the occasion of his induction into the Edward Robinson Chair of Biblical Theology, which Address has been published and extensively circulated with the knowledge and approval of the said Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D. , and has been republished by him in a second edition with a preface and an appendix, the said Rev. Charles A. Briggs, D. D. , taught that the Reason is a fountain of divine authority which may and does savingly enlighten men, even such men as reject the Scriptures as the authoritative proclamation of the will of God and reject also the way of salvation through the mediation and sacrifice of the Son of God as revealed therein ; all which is sustained by the following sentences from the said Inaugural. "

Only by thus inserting the statement of fact can you vote intelligently upon this specification. This is the form in which I shall bring the question before you.

(c) We have simply to determine whether the doctrines attributed to me are sustained by the extracts given from the Inaugural. I admit the statements that " the Reason is a fountain of divine authority," and "the Church is a fountain of divine authority. " But I deny all the rest of the doctrines attributed to me in the form and in the language in which the prosecution state them in these two charges. They do not prove and they cannot prove from the Inaugural that I teach that men who reject the Scriptures and the salvation through Jesus Christ are savingly enlightened by the Reason or by the Church. There are no express statements to that effect in the Inaugural. There are no statements which by logical deduction involve such conclusions. You cannot hold me responsible for any inferences made from my statements by the prosecution or by yourselves, whether such, inferences appear valid to you or not. There are several invalid assumptions which the prosecution are forced to make before they can convince you even by indirection of the validity of such inferences.

(3) I shall waste no time in an attempt to expound the doctrines which have been invented by the prosecution and wrongly attributed to me, but I shall proceed to the main question in hand, namely, whether the doctrines which I truly hold, that " the Reason is a fountain of divine authority " and " the Church is a fountain of divine authority," are contrary to the essential doctrines named in the charges, or to any other doctrines of Holy Scripture and Confession. I shall show you that they are not contrary to, but in strict accordance with, the Westminster Standards and Holy Scripture.

My doctrine is that " the Reason is historically a great fountain of divine authority. Do I contradict the Westminster Confession when I take this position? Some of you think that I do. But you overlook some very important statements in the Confession of Faith of our Church. It is a happ}^ circumstance that in the Inaugural Address itself I defined the Reason in the use I made of it. The prosecution recognized my definition when they quoted it in their original charge. I said in the Inaugural that I was " using Reason in a broad sense to embrace the metaphysical categories, the conscience, and the religious feeling'^ (p. 26). It seems probable that the prosecution do not keep this definition before them when they make inferences from the statements which they cite from the Inaugural. This probability amounts almost to a certainty when we observe that they have omitted this definition from the list of extracts from the Inaugural given in the new charge ; for I hesitate to impute to a committee of Presbytery an unworthy motive for this omission. This court should notice this omission and beware lest you make it yourselves. You should keep in mind constantly that the Reason as I use it embraces the conscience and the religious feeling.

The Testimony from the Standards

(a) The Westminster Confession sets forth the great distinguishing doctrine of the Reformed churches, that the divine grace is sovereign and free, far above and beyond human instrumentalities, more comprehensive, than any limits conceivable by man ; free to go beyond the ordinary divinely appointed means of grace ; free to persist and overcome every resistance of sin and unbelief. While the Holy Spirit ordinarily uses Bible, Church, and sacrament. He sometimes works apart from them and without them. On this principle the Westminster Confession bases its doctrine of the salvation of elect infants and elect incapables, who from their tender age or their abnormal organization are " incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word" (X. 3). Such are saved by Christ through the Spirit, " who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth" (X. 3).

This doctrine of the freedom of the divine grace and the power of the divine Spirit to work anywhere, and in any place and in any manner He pleaseth, opens a gate upon a wide territory into which the Westminster divines looked with awe and hesitating wonder, but which they left for later divines to explore as a region of liberty and extra confessional doctrine. The Westminster divines did not themselves go any further into this new field of the seventeenth century than to maintain that there were elect infants and elect incapables, but modern Presbyterians have with unanimity extended their doctrine of elect infants and elect incapables to all infants and all incapables; and have also added the class of elect heathen, a class which the Westminster divines excluded from the election of grace. If any class of persons can be saved by the divine

THE BIBLE THE ONLY FOUNTAIN OP DIVINE AUTHORITY 33

Spirit apart from Church and Bible and sacraments, how else can they be saved except by the direct contact of the divine Spirit with their spirits in the forms of the Reason? I have given a careful history of this doctrine in the little book " How shall we Revise?" and have traced the several stages of change toward this doctrine, through which our Presbyterian Church has gone on advancing toward the present determination to revise the tenth chapter of our Confession. Dr. Shedd says :

" That some evangelized men are saved in the present life by an extraordinary exercise of redeeming grace in Christ has been the hope and belief of Christendom" Dogmatic Theology," II. 706).

"This (X. 3) is commonly understood to refer not merely or mainly to idiots and insane persons, but to such of the pagan world as God pleases to regenerate without the use of the written revelation " (II. 708) .

"It is certain that the Holy Spirit can produce, if He please, such a disposition and frame of mind [a habit of faith and penitence] in a pagan without employing, as He commonly does, the written Word " (II. 708) .

I do not approve of Dr. Shedd's assertion that this modern view "has been the hope and belief of Christendom but there is little doubt that his statement expresses the conviction of modern Presbyterians. But if the Holy Spirit without mediation of Holy Scripture or Holy Church can produce faith and penitence in a pagan, how else can the divine Spirit produce these habits of soul, except through the forms of the Reason?

Accordingly I said in the appendix to the Inaugural Address, and I say it again : " Unless God's authority is discerned in the forms of the Reason, there is no ground upon which any of the heathen could ever have been saved, for they know nothing of Bible or Church. If they are not savingly enlightened by the Light of the World in the forms of the Reason, the whole heathen world is lost forever" (pp. 88, 89). This is quoted by the prosecution as if it were erroneous. But it states the exact truth.

The Westminster Confession points the way into this territory of divine grace imparted through the Reason ; who then shall venture to obstruct it?

The attitude of the Westminster Confession to the heathen and the unbaptized in Christian lands is clear from the following statement of Chapter XXV. 2 : " The visible Church . . . 3 of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion, . . . together with their children — out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." "We cannot subscribe to this last clause at the present time. We refuse to deny the possibility of salvation to the unbaptized children of the Baptist churches, or to merabers of the Society of Friends, or to soldiers of the Salvation Army, which have no ministry, no sacraments, and no church organization. We recognize that there may be and that there are possibilities of salvation through the activity of the divine Spirit in heathen lands. The faith of the modern Presbyterian Church has changed in this particular. If this clause "out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation" be an essential and necessary article, the whole Church is heretical. But it is not an essential article. We could erase this statement of XXV. 2 without impairing the great doctrine of this section of the chapter.