Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/221

The Question of Authority 203 character of the subject, there are few books which open the mind on the fields of grandeur more frequently than this sys- tematic theology. Its prose is not unworthy of being associ- ated in one's mind with that of Milton. Out of the depths this man has cried unto God and found Him. But, undeniably, theology has gone out of fashion. Huge treatises like those of Hodge or Shedd or Augustus Strong never found many readers, but they found their way to many book- shelves. They were treated with reverence. Now they are utterly ignored. The chief reason for this contempt of the- ology is that men impugn its ancient authority. Hodge rightly declared that theology was to be differentiated from philosophy by its source of authority. It dealt with revelation while philosophy dealt with speculation. Its function was the interpretation of absolute truth, committed to men by the Holy Ghost through the pages of the Scripture. In our period this supposedly infallible book was subjected to the most searching examination. The ordinary canons of historical and literary criticism were applied to it and as a result the awesome phrase "Thus saith the Lord" came to bear diverse connotations. It was in the eighties and nineties that the authority of the Scripture, already long questioned in Europe, became a vital question in American thought. Then a series of heresy trials — five within the Presbyterian Church — con- centrated the attention of religious people upon the subject. The most prominent figure in the great controversy in America was Charles Augustus Briggs (1841-1913), professor in Union Theological Seminary in New York from 1874 ^^ ^9^3- This controversy was preceded by a bitter controversy in the an- cient Congregational Seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, on questions of the future state, into which Briggs also entered. But the main question was the nature of Biblical inspira- tion. After a defence conducted by himself with great skill and acumen, he was acquitted of the charges of heresy by his Presbytery in January, 1893, but upon appeal to the General Assembly was convicted and suspended from the ministry of the Presbyterian Church in March of the same year. Apa];t from some minor peculiarities of personal temper, no one couid well have been found better able than Briggs to com-