Page:The kernel and the husk (Abbott, 1886).djvu/375

Letter 31] What! Shall we reject a candidate for ordination because he does not accept the Gospel according to Westcott and Hort, or the Gospel according to an unauthorized though scholarly knot of men called the Revisers? Impossible! all Christendom would cry shame upon us. On the whole, we seem driven to the conclusion that no candidate for Anglican ordination can be reasonably rejected for believing that parts of the Bible are spurious or un-historical, provided that he is willing to read in the presence of the congregation the portions of Scripture appointed by the Church.

If the test of miracles fails, and if the test of an infallible book fails, so too does failure await the test of an infallible Creed. It would be, at all events, departing strangely from the spirit of the Reformers and from the spirit of the Articles, to allow men laxity as regards the interpretation of the Scriptures, which are regarded as specially inspired, and yet to pin them to the letter of the Creeds, which are regarded as being authoritative because they are based on the Scriptures. If a candidate were to tell you, his Bishop, that "he accepted the Resurrection of Christ, and even of Christ's body, but that he could not honestly say that Christ rose on the third day; for Christ was buried on the evening of Friday, and rose early on the morning of Sunday, that is to say, on the second day," you would perhaps reason with him, and say that it was the Jewish way of reckoning; and if he were then to reply to you that to the greater part of the congregation this way of reckoning was unknown, and that the phrase might therefore convey a false impression—what would you say to this ultra-conscientious young man? This probably: that "the Creeds of Christendom could not be disturbed on account of the eccentricities of well-meaning individuals; that, if this was his only obstacle, you, his Bishop, could take upon yourself to justify him in repeating