According to the Sixth Article of the Church of England, both these epistles, bearing the names of Paul and Peter, are among the books "of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church." Dr. Farrar is therefore bound by them in logic and honor. He is not free to cast aside the Biblical term of _inspiration_ nor free to minimise as he pleases the "moving" influence of the Holy Ghost in either the New or the Old Testament. As a clergyman of the Church of England, he assumes an unwarrantable freedom; a freedom which is no more sanctioned by her Articles than it is by the letter or spirit of the Scriptures. He departs entirely from the primitive and real position of Protestantism; namely, that the Bible is the absolute standard of faith and practice, and that, wherever it is dark or dubious, it must be interpreted by itself. He treads the _via media_ of compromise and irrationality; neither going over to Rome, which claims to be inspired, like the Bible, and to be the vehicle of the living voice of God for the infallible interpretation of the written revelation--nor going over to Rationalism, which regards the Catholic Church as but a human institution, and the Bible as but a human composition. Believe that God has spoken, according to the words of Paul and Peter, and the Catholic theory is the only satisfactory one; disbelieve it, and there is no logical alternative but the most thoroughgoing Rationalism. XI. AN ORIENTAL BOOK Dr. Farrar stumbles, on one occasion, against the true theory of the Bible. Having to furnish an excuse, if not a justification, for the outrageous crudity of a good deal of its language, he reminds us that decorum changes with time and place. "The rigid external modesty and propriety of modern and English literature," he observes, "is disgusted and offended by statements which gave no such shock to ancient and Eastern readers." And he adds that "The plain-spokenness of Orientals involved no necessary offence against abstract morality." This is true enough, but the argument should be developed. What is urged in extenuation of the grossness of the Scripture is really applicable all round--to its mythology, its legends, its religion, its philosophy, its ethics, and its poetry. The Bible is an oriental book. And this one statement, when properly understood, gives us the true key to its interpretation, the real criterion of its character, and the just measure of its value.