i8 7 o] A THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY 143 



interpreted.&quot; It would be calumnious to suppose that 

 it is as for human compositions that Protestants are so 

 jealous for their symbolical books. The confessions 

 are reverenced as containing plain deductions from the 

 teaching of inspired writ or, in the words of a recent 

 Moderator of our General Assembly, because we are 

 satisfied that our standards &quot; are but an echo in human 

 language of the infallible Word.&quot; Now so long as the 

 confessional theology is viewed in this light we must 

 receive with suspicion and dislike every suggestion that 

 the historical circumstances and religious character of 

 the several branches of the Protestant Church have 

 influenced more than the mere externals of the orthodox 

 theology ; that something more than Scripture and the 

 rules of logic went to the formation of the Reformed 

 Confessions. For this something more must have had a 

 purely negative and injurious effect, serving only to make 

 the &quot; echo of the infallible Word &quot; imperfect and incorrect 

 or to make the path of theological deduction swerve from 

 the true line of logical accuracy. It is not strange that 

 the Church should indignantly refuse to admit that any 

 influence, wholly and purely perverting and therefore 

 unchristian and sinful, permeates her whole official teach 

 ing, for that would be to admit that the theology of the 

 Church can be corrected only by a hostile hand, only 

 through the pangs and dangers of another Reformation. 



It is clear that we are here brought face to face with 

 a very serious dilemma. So long as we hold fast the 

 theory that the true ideal of Protestant dogmatic is a 

 mere echo of the infallible Word in human language, we 

 must either despair of the Reformation theology or shut 

 our eyes to obvious historical facts which forbid us to 

 suppose that only accidental causes have operated to 

 prevent the realisation of that ideal in the confessional 

 theology. If it is impossible for us to rest in either of 

 these alternatives we must venture to open up the 

 question of the true relation of theology to Scripture. 



