The last stage of all in this deplorable paper is an application to Holy Scripture itself of the tricks which the Vicar of Great Staughton has already played, so much to his own satisfaction, with the Articles. "We may say that the value of the historical parts of the Bible may consist, rather in their significance, in the ideas which they awaken, than in the scenes themselves which they depict." (p. 199.) To a plain English understanding, (unperplexed with the dreams of Strauss, and other unbelievers of the same stamp,) such a statement conveys scarcely an intelligible notion. But we are not left long in doubt. "The application of Ideology to the interpretation of Scripture, to the doctrines of Christianity, to the formularies of the Church, may undoubtedly be carried to an excess; may be pushed so far as to leave in the sacred records no historical residue whatever.... An example of the critical Ideology carried to excess, is that of Strauss; which resolves into an ideal _the whole of the historical and doctrinal person of JESUS_.... But it by no means follows, because Strauss has substituted a mere shadow for the JESUS of the Evangelists, that there are not traits in the scriptural person of Jesus, which are better explained by referring them to an ideal than an historical origin: and without falling into fanciful exegetics, there are parts of Scripture more usefully interpreted ideologically than in any other manner,--as for instance, _the history of the Temptation of JESUS by Satan, and accounts of demoniacal possessions_." (pp. 200-201.) "Some may consider the descent of all Mankind from Adam and Eve as an undoubted historical fact; others may rather perceive in that relation a form of narrative into which in early ages tradition would easily throw itself spontaneously.... _Among a particular people, this historical representation became the concrete expression of a great moral truth_,--of the brotherhood of all human beings.... The force, grandeur, and reality of these ideas are not a whit impaired in the abstract, nor indeed the truth of the concrete history (!) as their representation, even though mankind should have been placed upon the earth _in many pairs at once, or in distinct centres of creation_. For the brotherhood of men really depends," &c., &c. (p. 201.) "Let us suppose one to be uncertain whether our LORD were born of the house and lineage of David, _or of the tribe of Levi_; and even to be driven to conclude that the genealogies of Him have _little historic value_; nevertheless, in idea, JESUS is both Son of David and Son of Aaron, both Prince of Peace, and High Priest of our profession; as He is, under another idea, though not literally, 'without father and without mother.' And He is none the less Son of David, Priest Aaronical, or Royal Priest Melchizedecan, in idea and spiritually, even if it be unproved whether He were any of them _in historic fact_.--In like manner it need not trouble us, if in