The sincere investigators into the character of the Bible and the nature of Christ are charged with exalting human reason above the word of God. But as soon as the subject is investigated and a Professor Swing or a Mr. MacQueary corroborates his interpretation by the Scripture itself, or Doctor Briggs shows his views to be sustained by history, by philosophy, by a profounder study of both nature and the Bible, then the ground is shifted, and it is maintained that it is not a question whether the views are true, but whether they conform to the creed; that the Catechism is not to be judged by the Bible or the facts in the case, but Bible and facts are to be interpreted by the words of the Confession; and if they do not agree with this, then heresy and infidelity are made manifest. The question is not whether the water of truth be found, but whether it is drunk out of an orthodox bottle, with the Church's label glued firmly upon it. The pretext for the charge of heresy against these eminent Biblical scholars is that they are undermining the Bible; but in conducting the trial, prosecutors themselves refuse to abide by the testimony of the Scriptures to decide the matter and erect above them soul creed or catechism. But let us stop for a moment and ask whence came these creeds and catechisms themselves? What else was their origin than out of the reason of man; out of the brains of scholars, as they in former years criticised and interpreted the same Scripture, and nature, and laws of God? And these scholars of the past were quite as fallible, quite as partisan, and far less well informed than our scholars to-day. Thus it is the dogmatists themselves who exalt the reason of man above the word of God, forbidding us to listen to the more direct voice of God in our own soul; forbidding us to decipher the revelations which the Divine Hand has written on the rocks, and tree, and animal structure, and even frowning upon that profounder study of the Scripture called the higher criticism, but bidding us accept, in its stead, the man-made substitute of some council or assembly of former generations.