.208 LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE vi 



of Rome what is to be said about tlie Messianic 

 doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated ? 

 And what about the authority of the writers of 

 the books of the New Testament, who, on this 

 theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions 

 for solid truths, but have built the very foun- 

 dations of Christian dogma upon legendary 

 quicksands ? 



But these may be said to be merely the 

 carpings of that carnal reason which the profane 

 call common sense ; I hasten, therefore, to bring 

 up the forces of unimpeachable ecclesiastical 

 authority in support of my position. In a sermon 

 preached last December, in St. Paul's Cathedral, 1 

 Canon Liddon declares : 



For Christians it will be enough to know that our Lord Jesus 

 Christ set the seal of His infallible sanction on the whole of the Old 

 Testament. He found the Hebrew Canon as we have it in our 

 hands to-day, and He treated it as an authority which was 

 above discussion. Nay more : He went out of His way if we 

 may reverently speak thus to sanction not a few portions of it 

 which modern scepticism rejects. When He would warn His 

 hearers against the dangers of spiritual relapse, He bids them 

 remember "Lot's wife." 2 When He would point out how 

 worldly engagements may blind the soul to a coming judgment, 

 He reminds ^iem how men ate, and drank, and married, and 

 were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into 



1 The Worth of the Old Testament, a Sermon preached in St. 

 Paul's Cathedral on the Second Sunday in Advent, 8th DPC , 

 1889, by H. P. Liddon, D.D., D.C.L., Canon and Chancellor/ 

 of St. Paul's. Second edition, revised and with a new preface, 

 1890. 



2 St. Luke xvii. 32. 



