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 PRINCETON, N. J. ^ 
 
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REPORT OF THE MINORITY. 
 
 The minority of the Committee appointed by ilie Presby- 
 tery to consider the Inaugural Address of Professor C. A. 
 Briggs, D.D., respectfully submit the following Report : 
 
 I. In the first part of the address. The Sources of Divine 
 Authority, it is not sufficiently clear whether the Bible, the 
 Church, and the Reason are regarded as co-ordinate or not. 
 But the writer was speaking as a Protestant, and Protestants 
 unite in exalting the Bible above the Church and the Reason. 
 As a part of the inaugural service he had solemnly subscribed 
 to the statement : " I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments to be the Word of God, the only infallible rule of 
 faith and practice." And to avoid being misunderstood he, 
 throughout the address, refers to his other writings for a fuller 
 exposition of his views. 
 
 Thus in his Biblical Study, p. i : " The Bible is the chief 
 source of the Christian religion, Christian theology, and Christian 
 life! While other secondary and subsidiary sources may be used 
 in connection with this principal source, they cannot disjjense 
 with it. For the Bible contains the revelation of redemption. 
 
 Nowhere else can such a redemption be found, save 
 
 where it has been derived from this fountain source, or from 
 those sacred persons, institutions and events i)resented to us in 
 the Bible. " 
 
 (i.) The Authority of the Church. — This is clearly stated on 
 p. 63 : "I am one of those wh(^ believes that God iniiabits His 
 Church, and guides it in its official decisions, not inerrantly 
 in every utterance, but in the essential doctiines in which the 
 universal Church is in concord." 
 
 And again, p. 65 : " The Bible, from the very nature of the 
 case, leads us through its forms into the very presence-chamber 
 of God, but our minds are filled at the same time with the historic 
 forms of the ancient world. It is the office of the Church, in ihe 
 use of its institutions, to bring us into communion with the 
 Triune God in the forms of the modern world, and give us the 
 assurance of His presence with the Church through its history, 
 and with us in the hour and moment of our use of its institutions. 
 The Church unites with the liible in giving us the assurance of 
 Ciod's presence and authority throughout history, Christian as 
 well as Hebrew, and of His gracious help in the present. It 
 gives us the blessed experience of the communion of saints. It 
 opens the eyes to see that we are in the outer ranks of innumer- 
 able lines of the host of the living God, ever on the march 
 through the life in this world into the gates of Paradise, and 
 
onward on the high way of holiness to the throne of God and 
 the Lamb, which ever bounds the horizon of the beatific vision " 
 
 In this way " the majority of Christians from the apostolic 
 age have found God through the Church. Martys and saints, 
 fathers and schoolmen, the profoundest intellects, the saintliest 
 lives have had this experience. Institutional Christianity has 
 been to them the presence-chamber of God. They have therein 
 and thereby entered into communion with all saints." p. 25. 
 
 All this is beautifully in accord with the teaching of tlie 
 Confession concerning the Church. " Unto the catholic, visible 
 Church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles and ordinances 
 of God for the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life 
 to the end of the world ; and doth by his own presence and Spirit, 
 according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto." — Chap. 
 XXV, 2-3. And as to the Divine Authority in the Church: " The 
 Lord Jesus as king and head of His Church hath therein 
 appointed a government in the hand of church officers, distinct 
 from the civil magistrate. 'J'o these officers the keys of the 
 kingdom of heaven are committed, by virtue whereof they have 
 power respectively to retain and remit sins, to shut that kingdom 
 against the impenitent, both by word and censures, and to open 
 it unto penitent sinners, by the ministry of the Gospel, and by 
 absolution from censures, as occasion shall require." — Chap. 
 XXX, 1-2. 
 
 (2.) 77/1? Authority of the Reason, p. 26 — "A.nnther means used 
 by God to made Himself known is the forms of the Reason, using 
 Reason in a broad sense, to embrace the metaphysical categories, 
 the conscience and the religious feeling. Herein the Holy of Holies 
 of human nature God presents himself to those who seek Him." 
 If the conscience does not speak with a Divine Authority it has 
 no, legitimate authority. If God does not commune with man 
 through the religious feeling, /. e., the heart, communion with 
 God is but a figure of speech. If God cannot be known through the 
 forms of the Reason, He is unknowable, for even the Bible comes 
 to men through the forms of the reason, and is addressed to the 
 understanding, the conscience and the heart. It does not follow 
 because " the light of nature, and the works of creation and 
 
 providence are not sufficient to give that knowledge of 
 
 God and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation," that the 
 Holy Spirit, working in the heart and conscience, may not It-ad 
 a man like Martineau to a true belief in God ; or because the 
 Holy Scriptures are "most necessary," as one of the "outward 
 and ordinary means whereby Christ communicateth to us the 
 benefits of redem|>tion." that there can be no knowledge of God 
 and no ])ossibility of salvation apart from the Scriptures, for that 
 is to affirm that the whole heathen world, without a i^ossible 
 exception, is lost for ever — a doctrine that the Church has 
 declared needs revision. 
 
 11. In regard to the i)assagc on Incrravcw, pp. 35. 36, your 
 
Committee in the minority find nothing in the Confession that 
 IS antagonized by it. The expressions in Chap I: "By His 
 singular c?re and providence kept pure in all ages and are there- 
 fore authentical; " '-the many other incomparable excellencies, 
 and the entire perfection thereof, whereby it doth abundantly 
 evidence itself to be the Word of God;" " our full i)ersiiasion of 
 the infallible truth and divine authority thereof." etc., all refer 
 evidently to the Scriptures as they now exist in the original 
 languages, not to the Scriptures as first committed to writing in 
 the original manuscripts. But no one claims, and the Confession 
 certainly does not claim, inerrancy for the Scriptures in their 
 present text. The utmost that is claimed is inerrancy for the 
 original manuscripts. Therefore, it is submitted, these exjtres- 
 sions in the Confession cannot mean inerrancy. 
 
 Nor does the address deny the inerrancy of the original 
 manuscripts. " 1 shall venture to affirm that, so far as I can see, 
 there are errors in the Scriptures that no one has been able to 
 explain, and the theory that they were not in the original text is 
 sheer assumption, upon which no mind can rest with certainty." 
 It is the dogmatic statement of inerrancy, that the Scriptures must 
 be absolutely inerrant, for " one proved error destroys their 
 authority" — that is opposed as dangerous. "These errors are 
 all in the circumstantials, and not in the essentials; they are in 
 
 the human setting, not in the precious jewel itself; 
 
 Whether the divine authority extends to the circumstantials of 
 this divine teaching or not, it is unwise, and it is unchristian to 
 force men to accept the divine authority of the Bible or reject it, 
 on the question of its inerrancy in the circumstantials and the 
 details of every passage," p. 36. 
 
 It is difficult to avoid misunderstanding the address on 
 these points, unless it is interpreted, as the writer requests that 
 it may be, by the light of his other writings. The other side of 
 his position is there seen. For example: In Biblical Study, 
 p. 13, " Our adversaries may overthrow our systems of theology, 
 our confessions and catechisms, our church organizations and 
 methods of work, for these are, after all, human productions, the 
 hastily thrown up outworks of the truth; but they can never 
 contend successfully against the ^Vord of God. that livefh and 
 abideth forever, which though the heavens fall, and the earth 
 pass away, will not fail in one jot or tittle from the most com- 
 plete fulfillment, which will shine in new beautv and glory, ns its 
 parts are one by one searchingly examined, and which will prove 
 itself not only invincible, liut all conquerin'j, as point after point 
 is most hotly contested. We are assured that at last it will claim 
 universal obedience as t1>e pure and faultless minor of Him who 
 is Himself the brightness of the Feather's glory and the exjiress 
 image of His person" And p. 160: "Doubtless by (iods 
 ' singular care and providence they have been kept pure in all 
 ages and are therefore aiitheniit al.' Doubtless throughout the 
 
whole work of the authors', 'the Holy Spirit was present, caus- 
 ing His energies to flow into the spontaneous exercises of the 
 writers' faculties, elevating and directing, where need be, and 
 everywhere securing the errorless expression in language of the 
 thought designed by God.' " 
 
 III On p. 53 is the statement: "Another fault of the Protest- 
 ant theology is the limitation of the process of redemption to this 
 world, and the neglect of those vast periods of time, which have 
 elapsed for most men between death and the resurrection." 
 This is at first startling, but only because of the somewhat 
 unusual, but perfectly correct, sense in which the writer uses 
 the word redemption. In the paragraph immediately jjreced- 
 ing he defines his usage : '' The Bible rises high above the 
 faults of modern theology, and comprehends in its redemption of 
 man his justification, sanctification, and glorification." Again 
 on p. 52 : " The redemption of the Bible comprehends the whole 
 process of grace. Modern Protestants have unduly emphasized 
 the beginning of redemption, justification by faith alone." The 
 statement clearly means, not that those who are not redeemed in 
 this life may be redeemed after death, but that those whose 
 redemption is begun in this life, in their justification, will find the 
 process continued and completed in their perfect sanctification 
 and glorification in the life beyond. As to the dangerous 
 doctrine that the issues of this life are not final, that death is not 
 decisive, that there will be an opportunity given in the middle 
 state for repentance and salvation ; in other words, that there is a 
 probation after death, there is not a hint of it in the address. On 
 the contrary, it is expressly repudiated, p 54. A 11 that is affirmed 
 regarding ihe middle state is, that the wicked sink into deeper 
 and more awful depths of depravity, and the righteous rise to 
 more blessed heights of sanctification and glorification. The 
 interpretation that the writer gives to the teaching of the Con- 
 fession on the subject of sanctification after death may or may 
 not be correct. The question whether sanctification is completed 
 in the moment '* immediately after death," or in .ho. state " imme- 
 diately after death," is not vital to "the system of doctrine con- 
 tained in the Confession of Faith." It is not sufficient, in order to 
 establish charges, to show that he is at variance with certain 
 phrases and expressions in the Confession, but that he is clearly 
 in conflict with the system of doctrine which it contains. Believ- 
 ing that this is not the case, that charges based upon this address 
 cannot be successfully sustained, and that such a tiial for heresy 
 would be a cause of immeasurable disturbance and injury to the 
 Church, your Commitite in the minority recommend that no 
 judicial proceedings be entered upon. 
 
 All of which is respectfully submitted. 
 
 J. H. MclLVAINF, 
 
 CoiinnittC£ in t/ir Minoi itw