Dean Burgon's Fiery War on Modernist Science-so-called, Part 2

Continuing with some Burgon quotes from Inspiration and Interpretation:

AT THE ROOT OF THE WHOLE MISCHIEF OF THESE LAST DAYS LIES DISBELIEF IN THE BIBLE AS THE WORD OF GOD. THIS IS THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR (Preface, p. xvii).

YOU ARE NEVER TO FORGET THE GREAT FUNDAMENTAL POSITION, THAT THE BIBLE CLAIMS TO BE THE WORD OF GOD; AND THAT GOD'S WORD CAN NEVER CONTRADICT OR BE CONTRADICTED BY GOD'S WORKS (Sermon II, p. 41).

DESTROY MY CONFIDENCE IN THE BIBLE AS AN HISTORICAL RECORD, AND YOU DESTROY MY CONFIDENCE IN IT ALTOGETHER; FOR BY FAR THE LARGEST PART OF THE BIBLE IS AN HISTORICAL RECORD. If the Creation of Man, -- the longevity of the Patriarchs, -- the account of the Deluge; -- if these be not true histories, what is to be said of the lives of Abraham, of Jacob, of Joseph, of Moses, of Joshua, of David, -- of our Saviour Christ Himself? ... Will you then reject one miracle and retain another? Impossible! You can make no reservation, even in favour of the incarnation of our Lord, -- the most adorable of all miracles, as it is the very keystone of our Christian hope. EITHER, WITH THE BEST AND WISEST OF ALL AGES, YOU MUST BELIEVE THE WHOLE OF HOLY SCRIPTURE; OR, WITH THE NARROW-MINDED INFIDEL, YOU MUST DISBELIEVE THE WHOLE. THERE IS NO MIDDLE COURSE OPEN TO YOU (Sermon II, p. 46).

HE WHO SURRENDERS THE FIRST PAGE OF HIS BIBLE, SURRENDERS ALL. (Sermon II, p. 51?).

THE BIBLE (BE PERSUADED) IS THE VERY UTTERANCE OF OF THE ETERNAL; -- AS MUCH GOD'S WORD, AS IF HIGH HEAVEN WERE OPEN, AND WE HEARD GOD SPEAKING TO US WITH HUMAN VOICE. Every book of it, is inspired alike; and is inspired entirely. ... THE BIBLE IS NONE OTHER THAN THE VOICE OF HIM THAT SITTETH UPON THE THRONE! EVERY BOOK OF IT, -- EVERY CHAPTER OF IT, -- EVERY VERSE OF IT, -- EVERY WORD OF IT, -- EVERY SYLLABLE OF IT, -- (WHERE ARE WE TO STOP?) -- EVERY LETTER OF IT -- IS THE DIRECT UTTERANCE OF THE MOST HIGH! (Sermon III, p. 76?)

[The above are all copied from David Cloud's For Love of the Bible, pp. 131, 135, 136, 137. All the emphases are his. Where I've put a question mark after a page number, what I've copied is only a portion of a long segment and I don't know which of the page numbers noted refers to what I copied out.].

Cloud sums up, p. 137:

What we see in the previous excerpts [from which I've taken the few quotations above] is one of the most brilliant scholars of the nineteenth century boldly testifying of his faith in a perfect Bible before the student body of the university. We can be sure that such a testimony has not been heard at that university in many a decade, probably not in this century. Burgon's views did not prevail. His earnest pleas were ignored. The soul-destroying gloom of rationalism has long settled over Oxford.

[p. 138] Burgon was a scholar, but he refused to dance to the scholar's tunes. We will see that today's Rationalists -- Metzger, Bruce, Kenyon, Aland, and that gang -- treat Burgon as if he were some kind of tradition-bound crank. In fact, a great many who profess to be evangelical today hold rationalistic views on the Bible, denying the literalness of the first three chapters of Genesis, rejecting the absolute perfection of the inspired text, claiming that the Bible is inaccurate when it deals with "scientific matters." Burgon's defense of the verbal-plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture steps on the toes of the vast majority of today's Christian scholars and theologians.

Often we worry about how many are drawn away from the truth by the claims of science, which is what motivates many Christians to try to argue against those claims scientifically. But as I've reported recently, I've finally pulled back from that effort because no matter what one says, no matter how telling a point you make on that level, they will deny it one way or another. The evidence for the Flood is everywhere, for instance, but they are blind to it and rationalize it away. The evidence for the degeneration of life is good but they deny it and won't even consider doing what it would take to demonstrate it. They are under the spell of their theory, perhaps irrevocably doomed to delusion.

It must be God's will, then, that we simply hold up His Word to them instead of spending so much time on the scientific questions. God's Word is sharper than a two-edged sword and if they ignore it they will be finally judged by it. Burgon's defense is a wonderful model for us.

There is no doubt also a great deal of pride and fear of man that motivates those who abandon parts of the Bible to Science-so-called while claiming they can hold onto the rest. This is a great snare. We have to hold to the Bible no matter what they say against us, no matter what it does to our reputation in the eyes of the worldly. God's word is "foolishness" to fallen humanity. They lack the "ears to hear" and we can't give them that, we can only give them the Word and either they can hear it or they can't. That's just the way it is. They will call us "morons" and worse, and eventually they may even persecute us here in the Land of the Free, just as they do in the rest of the world. When we are called to Christ we are called to die to this world, and this is one way we must die to it.

What a glorious testimony Burgon has. We should all aim for that faithfulness to God's word in denial of our standing in this world.

Dean Burgon's Fiery War on Modernist Science-so-called should be our model

John William Burgon has so far figured in my blogs only on the subject of the Bible versions as an inspiring and passionate scholar and writer against the revisionist Bible put out by a cadre of modernist Anglican churchmen in the 19th century. But now I've been introduced to another of his writings through David Cloud's wonderful history of the Bible versions controversy, For Love of the Bible, in which he discusses Burgon and quotes at length from Burgon's book in response to a modernist tract of his day, which puts Science-so-called above God's word. Oh how I love Dean Burgon. The more I read of his writings the more I love the man whose mind produced them. He is, as David Cloud calls him, indeed a "warrior," a warrior for truth over lies, in this case the truth over the lies of modernism, the lies of Science-so-called. I found his book online at CCEL but I'll probably mostly be quoting from David Cloud's book.

[Sometimes I think I won't be much interested in seeing ANYONE I know from this life in heaven, not family or friends -- oh a few exceptions do come to mind (and of course we'll all be perfected and love each other completely) -- but there are plenty of people I know only through their books or books about them that I could follow around for eternity, and Burgon is one of them. If of course one can have eyes for anyone besides the Lord]

The fire with which Burgon writes offends some, though it's a quality I've always particularly enjoyed in his writings, and here he defends this style:

When a few words have been added concerning the manner in which I have executed my task, this Preface shall be brought to a close. ... A man feels strongly and warmly; writes fast and freely; is determined to be clearly understood: IS WEARY OF THE DIGNIFIED CONVENTIONALITIES UNDER WHICH SCEPTICISM LOVES TO CONCEAL ITSELF WHEN IT COMES ABROAD. ... Some respectable persons, I doubt not, will think my treatment of them harsh and uncharitable. ... If I may declare my mind freely, PUNCTILIOUS COURTESY IN DEALING WITH SUCH OPINIONS, BECOMES A SPECIES OF TREASON AGAINST HIM AFTER WHOSE NAME WE ARE CALLED, and whom we profess to serve. Seven men may combine to handle the things of God, it seems, in the most outrageous manner; while themselves are to be the objects of consideration, tenderness, respect! I cannot see their title to any consideration at all. (pp. xxiii, xxiv).[Cloud 131-2][all caps are Cloud's, large type and bolding are mine]

Right. THAT is the spirit in which we SHOULD respond in defense of the word of God against those who attack it, not against nonChristians who don't know any better, but certainly against those who call themselves Christians (or who at least know what Christianity teaches) and yet support modernist attacks on the Bible.

These days if you dare to call a heretic a heretic you may be denounced as harsh and unloving by the heretics who call themselves Christians, and the heretic will even be supported by people you know to be Christians, very weak Christians, who think Christian love is a flabby thing that amounts to always being nice to everybody. No, Burgon is right. We are NOT to be nice to people who claim to be Christian but attack God's word and allow dangerous lies to go unchallenged. Yet, even when one attacks only the lies and not the person today's shrinking "Christians" may find that too "harsh." No wonder the church is so weak.

He goes on:

This is no literary misunderstanding, or I could have been amicable enough ... No other than an attempt to destroy Man's dearest hopes, is this infamous book: no other than an insult, the grossest imaginable, offered to the Majesty of Heaven; an attack, the more foul because it is so insidious, against the Everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ. IN SUCH A CAUSE I WILL NOT SO FAR GIVE IN TO THE SMOOTH FASHION OF A SUPPLE AND INDIFFERENT AGE, AS TO PAY THESE SEVEN WRITERS A SINGLE COMPLIMENT WHICH THEY WILL CARE TO ACCEPT (Preface, pp. xxvi, xxvii). [Cloud, 132][all caps are Cloud's, bolding is mine]

And then he goes on to defend the Book of Genesis -- THE BOOK OF GENESIS, THE VERY FIRST VERSES OF GENESIS -- against the claims of "Science." Oh happy day, he makes me weep for joy at his bold defense of truth, at the same time weep in mourning over the lies that have taken over our formerly Christian civilization ever since Darwin.

The arguments he is answering are the same arguments we are called upon to answer now -- the insertion of thousands, millions of years into the Creation Week for instance.

I want to post this now as I need a break, although I may want to come back later and add more as he gets into the meat of the argument.

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But here I want to quote his own motto at the beginning of his book because it is so apt and so true to his character:

I CANNOT HOLD MY PEACE, BECAUSE THOU HAST HEARD, O MY SOUL,
THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET, THE ALARM OF WAR.

{That's from Jeremiah somewhere]. How I wish there were more true Christians now with his spirit. How I wish he had won the war, for the sake of the Church which is now laboring under a miserable load of modernist garbage, in the form of the modernist Bibles at least, and under a spell of some kind of mealy-mouthed nicey-niceness too. But he didn't win -- except I know he won the praise of our Lord and will enjoy it for eternity and that makes me happy.

He didn't win. The idiots won. The unbelieving modernists won. They took over the Anglican church for one thing. They are behind all the modern Bibles for another.

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Later. As I've come back to this after my break, reading along in the Preface at CCEL, I just want to report again how happy Burgon makes me. And his writing has almost the same effect as Scripture itself on me, obviously because he is so utterly devoted to God's word -- the peace that passes understanding comes over me at times as I read him, just as it does as I read Scripture, undoing knots in my muscles, even putting me in a state of worship.

But also sometimes I burst into laughter at his ability to capture the sheer evil stupidities of his opponents, as here:

There is a certain form of fallacy of statement in which this Gentleman’s writings abound, which calls aloud for notice and signal reprobation. He has a marvellous aptitude, (one would fain hope through some intellectual infirmity,) of connecting together in the same sentence two or three clauses; one or two of which shall be true as Heaven, while the other XXIXis false as Hell. The reply to such a sentence is impossible, without many words,—far more than Mr. Jowett’s sentences commonly deserve.—Sometimes he strings together several heads of thought; of which enumeration the kindest thing which can be said is that it betrays an utter want of intellectual perspective. To unravel even a part of this tangled web so as to expose its argumentative worthlessness, soon fills a page. . . . . But there is another kind of fallacy which the same gentleman wields with immense effect, and in the use of which he is a great master; which, because it was absolutely impossible to handle it fitly in the proper place, shall be briefly adverted to, here. I proceed to describe it not without indignation; for I am profoundly struck by the intellectual perversity, not to say the moral obliquity, which has so entirely made this vile instrument its own.

The fallacy then is of this nature. When Professor Jowett would put forth something especially deserving of reprehension,—some sentiment or opinion which he either knows, or ought to know, that the whole Church will resent with unqualified abhorrence,—he assumes a plaintive manner, and puts himself into an interesting attitude; sometimes even folds his hands, as if in prayer. He then begins by (1) throwing out a remark of real beauty, and so conciliating for himself an indulgent hearing; or (2) he goes off on some Moral question, and so defeats attention; or (3) he delivers himself of some undeniable truth, and so disarms censure; or (4) he says something of an entirely equivocal kind, and so leaves his reader at fault. Candour, of course, gives him the benefit of the doubt. XXXIt is not till the sentence is well advanced, or till it is examined by the fatal light of its context, that one is shewn what the ambiguous writer really was intending. A cloven foot appears at last; but it is instantly withdrawn, with a shuffle; and you experience a scowl or a sneer, as the case may be, for your extreme unkindness in inquiring whether it was not a cloven foot you saw? . . . . Meanwhile, the learned Professor has gone off in alia omnia, with a look of earnestness which challenges respect, and a vagueness of diction which at once discourages pursuit and defeats inquiry. The fish invariably ends by disappearing in a cloud of his own ink.

What a satisfying description of the methods of such sanctimonious liars. The devil certainly does know how to guide his captives into such mind-twisting exercises.

This is almost at the end of his Preface. The end goes:

It shall suffice to have said thus much. These pages must now be suffered to go forth; not without a hearty aspiration that a blessing may attend them from Him sine Quo nihil est validum, nilil sanctum; and that what was intended for the strength and help of those who want helping and strengthening, (I am thinking particularly of what has been offered on the subject of Inspiration,) may not prove misleading or perplexing to any.