"[245] But reverence for the Scriptures is
rapidly on the decline among the Unitarians,--the direct result of the
influence of the German and English Rationalists. They call all
believers in orthodox opinions, "Bibliolaters." They spurn the thought
of an infallible Bible. "No wonder," they say, "that the Bibliolaters
quail before the iconoclasm of Bishop Colenso, and, in their rage, call
aloud for his excision from the Church; for, if a single one of the
difficulties he accumulates can be proved a reality, the whole edifice
of their faith topples to its fall.... We believe that safety and sense
can alone be found in our theory, which regards Scripture as credible
though human, as inspired not in its form, but in its substance, of
various and, in many cases, of unknown authorship, and representing
different stages of culture. We cannot accept all its documents as of
co-ordinate authority; nor in every one of its statements can we
recognize a product of inspiration. We do not conceive ourselves bound,
therefore, to defend the geology of Moses, or to admire the conduct of
the Israelites in the extermination of the Canaanites; or to infuse a
recondite spiritual meaning into the amatory descriptions and appeals of
the Song of Solomon.
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