i88 ORIGINAL SIN 



to be questioned by those who believe in supernatural 

 revelation, in biblical inspiration as historically under- 

 stood, and in the e\ddential value in spiritual matters 

 of scriptural inductions. In this connection permit me 

 to remind you once more that arguments based upon 

 the use of isolated proof-texts, whether positive or 

 negative, constructive or critical, have little value. I 

 have sought to avoid their use, and feel justified in dis- 

 regarding critical arguments against catholic doctrine 

 based upon the inadequacy of such proofs.^ Holy 

 Scripture contains memorials of the stages of a pro- 

 gressive revelation, and therefore affords data that 

 require to be connected in a comprehensive view of the 

 whole process — its earlier stages being interpreted, 

 not by the limitations of meaning which they exhibited 

 at first, but by the trend and inspired purpose which 

 the completed process enables us to detect throughout. 

 If early revelations meant more than either could at once 

 appear or could be present in the consciousness of 

 individual sacred writers, the Gospel enables us to 

 apprehend that more without either forcing Sacred 

 Writ into unnatural meanings or reading into it the 

 fancies of a scholastic imagination. 



But in these lectures our primary concern is not with 



^ the biblical and theological validity of catholic doctrine. 



' The question before us is this: Assuming that man 

 was originally in a sinless state of grace, and that the 



^ Cf. pp. 139, 140, above — especially the note on p. 140, wherein 

 Dr. Tennant's dependence upon a negative use of the proof-text 

 method is indicated. 



