226 BULLETIN OF THE 



here his teacher. He saw that the Christian chureh had already 

 passed through many epochs of transition, and that the friction 

 incident to such transition periods had only brushed away the 

 incrustations of theological error, and heightened the brightness 

 of theological truth. In a world where the different branches 

 and departments of human knowledge are not pushed forward 

 paiH passu — where " knowledge comes but wisdom lingers" — 

 he held it nothing strange that the scientific raan should some- 

 times be unintelligible to the theologian, and the theologian unin- 

 telligible to the scientific man. He believed, with the old Puri- 

 tan, that " the Lord has more truth yet to break out of His holy 

 word" than the systematic theologian is always ready to admit; 

 and as the humble minister and interpreter of nature, he was cer- 

 tain that the scientific man has much truth to learn of which he 

 is not yet aware. There must needs be fermentation in new 

 thought, as in new wine, but the vintage of the brain, like the 

 vintage of the grape, is only the better for a process which brings 

 impurities to the surface, where they may be scummed off, and 

 settles the lees at the bottom, where they ought to be. It is 

 under the figure or a vintage that Bacon describes the crowning^ 

 result of a successful inductive process. When this process has 

 been completed in any direction, it remains for a wider critical 

 and reconciling philosophy to bring the other departments of 

 knowledge into logical relation and correspondence with the new 

 outlook that has been gained on nature and its phenomena. 



Erasmus tells us in his Praise of Folly, mingling satire with 

 the truth of his criticism, that in order to understand the scholas- 

 tic theology of his day, it was necessary to spend six-and-thirty 

 years in the study of Aristotle's physics, and of the doctrines of 

 the Scotists. What a purification of method has been wrought in 

 theology since the times of Erasmus 1 And for that purification 

 the Church is largely indebted to the methodology of modern 

 science, in clearing up the thoughts, and rationalizing the intel- 

 lectual processes of men. The gain for sound theology is here 

 unspeakable, and amply repays her for the heavy baggage she 

 has dropped by the way at the challenge of science — baggage 

 which only impeded her march, without reinforcing her artillery. 



Hence, as a Christian philosopher. Prof. Henry never fonnd it 

 necessary to lower the scientific flag in order to conciliate an ob- 

 scurantist theology, and he never lowered the Christian flag ia 



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