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divisions in the sect, and the tendency to freethinking, this must be fatal to the community as soon as any strong foe should rise against Caraism. The champion of rabbinism against Caraism, to whom more than to any other the defeat of the sect as a growing heresy is to be ascribed, was the Egyptian Saadia ben Joseph, who died in 942 as the head of the Jewish school at Sura. From his writings Dr. Fürst has drawn many of the details concerning the sect and the teachers, of whom he was the victorious foc.

The Caraites ceased after this time to have much literary significance. But the communities, which still remain, preserve in their customs, the lost record of Anan and his followers. When Dr. Frankl, in his Eastern journey some eight years since, visited the Caraite synagogue of the Beni Hamikra in Constantinople, he was surprised to notice that nearly all the congregation were gathered in the outer court, while the inner room of the synagogue was almost empty. He was told that the reason of this was that some of them had been in contact, on the day before, with a dead body, and that the majority probably had, on that day, “known" their wives, but on account of the Sabbath, had not been able to purify themselves by a bath.

ARTICLE III.

THE DOCTRINAL ATTITUDE OF OLD SCHOOL
PRESBYTERIANS.

BY LYMAN H. ATWATER, PROFESSOR OF MENTAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN PRINCETON COLLEGE.

INTRODUCTION.

In responding to the call to contribute to the catena of expositions of the polemics of various evangelical churches and schools, now in course of publication in this Journal, the link which represents the attitude of the body of Presbyterians known as Old school, in the premises, the writer will not long detain his readers with preliminaries. He will, at this point, offer but one or two cautionary remarks. First, the author only is responsible for this Article and its statements, except so far as it quotes the testimony of others. No one else is committed by it. It, therefore, can carry no authority beyond the confidence reposed in his qualifications for the task, and the intrinsic, self-evidencing weight of its statements and reasonings. More than this be cannot claim. Thus much, doubtless, all parties in interest will cordially concede.

Secondly, the doctrinal principles which Old school Presbyterians have been called, in providence, to maintain against the assaults of parties within or without the pale of evangelical Christendom, they do not regard as peculiarities, either sectarian or provincial. They are often characterized as such by adversaries and outsiders, as if they constituted a special body of dogmas peculiar to Old school Presbyterians, or even to some one of their theological schools, as Princeton. So we often hear not only of Old school Presbyterian, but of "Princeton theology."; and this, as if they respectively were made up of a set of singular tenets unVOL. XXI. No. 81.

9

known, or little accepted, elsewhere in the Christian church. Old school Presbyterians regard this matter in a different light. Their own doctrines which have brought them into conflict with others, they regard as catholic in the sense immediately to be pointed out, and the counter doctrines, with which these have been impugned, as the peculiarities of parties or sects or individuals hurled against the common faith. In order to preserve this in its integrity and purity, it has been requisite to defend it against the intrusion of such singularities, novelties, and long-exploded but resurgent errors. In saying that their contested doctrines are catholic, we mean either, 1. that, with insignificant exceptions, they are part of the avowed faith of all the great branches of the Christian church, Latin, Greek, Lutheran, and Reformed; or, 2. that, with like unimportant exceptions, they are professed by the evangelical churches of the Reformation, both Lutheran and Reformed; or, 3. that, so far as disputes among those called Calvinists are concerned, the doctrines maintained by us are the doctrines of catholic Calvinism of the Reformed and Puritan churches, as shown by their symbols, the writings of their great theologians, and the vast preponderance in numbers among those reputed Calvinists, who hold with us on controverted points, over any of the parties who embrace either of the antagonistic schemes whereby they are assailed. Claiming thus to set up no peculiarities of our own, and to maintain only what is common to us, either with all, or with the evangelical, or with most of the Calvinistic portion of the Christian church, we come at once to our main work the presentation of the views of Old school Presbyterians on points of difference between them and other evangelical Christians. Assuming, of course, that all agree in the sufficiency of the evidence for the being and more fundamental attributes of God, and that any controversies in regard to the nature or persons of the Godhead, are to be determined by the authority of the scriptures, the first questions to be disposed of, are those which pertain to:

THE RULE OF FAITH.

The holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are held to be the only and the sufficient rule of faith and practice, and the ultimate arbiter in all controversies. They are such because they are the word of God, and therefore infallible. This position, in general terms, probably will be scarcely questioned by any who call themselves evangelical. Yet we think it virtually assailed and endangered by the denial of verbal inspiration. We hold strenuously that inspiration extends not only to the thoughts but the words of scripture, else it is not the word of God, but man's word attempting to express the mind of God; hence it declares itself to be the word of God, spoken "not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," "given by inspiration of God," who "spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets," the "holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." By the "inspiration of God" we understand the infallible guidance of God so given to the writers of the sacred oracles as to lead them to write the precise words in which he would express his mind and will, and no other; to preserve them, in short, from all error, not only of thought, but of language. This is perfectly consistent with each writer preserving his own individuality of style, as is undeniably the case. To prove these things incompatible or contradictory is impossible. And unless for an author to preserve his own style, and yet use words which the Holy Ghost selects for the accurate expression of his mind, be proved impossible, all arguments against the verbal inspiration of the scriptures founded on this individuality of style are without foundation. This is wholly aside of all questions as to the manner of this guidance. It is enough that He who can so marvellously work upon the secret springs of the soul, unobserved, except by his marvellous effects in transforming that soul from unbelief to faith, from enmity to love, from despair to hope, can, in a manner no less secret

and wonderful, move it to write the words which he teacheth.

The questions pertaining to revelation, whether or how far it be by suggestion, dreams, afflatus, or articulate, vocal utterance, are irrelevant, and, in regard to the great question in issue the nature and extent of inspiration-immaterial. Revelation is one thing; inspiration another. The former is the revealing to men of things before unknown; the latter is the securing of infallible accuracy in writing the truth, whether acquired through special supernatural revelation, or, in whole or in part, from natural human means of information. This, we say, extends both to the thoughts and words the matter and manner of the subject of inspiration.

Not only does this appear from such scripture testimonies as those already cited, but from the impossibility of secur ing an infallible and authoritative communication of the mind of God to men by any other means. If the sacred penmen were left to the choice of their own words, without being divinely guided in all instances to the use of the right words, which truly express the thoughts of God, then there is no certainty that in any instance the words are employed which truly declare the mind and will of God. Nothing is more notorious than that the ablest and best men frequently fail adequately and rightly to express what they mean to express. If this be so in human things, must it not, much more, be so in divine things? How will it ever be possible thus to tell what is the real mind of God, from these attempts to speak it by the human authors of the words of scripture? The words may indeed assert something very different from what "man's wisdom teacheth." But how does this bind the conscience of any one offended by the doctrine thus declared? The words are the words of man, after all, and may very erroneously express the mind of God. Hence, if verbal inspiration be denied, then the whole authority of the scriptures, as an infallible rule of faith and arbiter of controversies, is subverted. No one is concluded