 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
The Soon Coming Judgment Of God Upon America and How To Escape It 441
his revisions are of great significance. He further writes that the significance of these revisions
are not apparent when looked upon individually and that they will change the course of Christian
history:
It is quite impossible to judge the value of what appear to be trifling
alterations merely by reading them one after another. Taken together, they
have often important bearings which few would think of at first . . . The
difference between a picture say of Raffaelle and a feeble copy of it is made up of
a number of trivial differences . . . We have successfully resisted being warned
off dangerous ground, where the needs of revision required that it should not be
shirked . . . It is, one can hardly doubt, the beginning of a new period in Church
history. So far the angry objectors have reason for their astonishment.
1413
In his letters Hort also embraced the teaching of Evolution promoted by Darwin and the
New Age concept that man is divine as promoted by Madam Blavatsky. In the following quote
he embraces the New Age concept that man is divine: “It is of course true that we can only know
God through human forms, but then I think the whole Bible echoes the language of Genesis 1:27
and so assures us that human forms are divine forms.” Of protestantism, Hort wrote:
“Protestantism is only parenthetical and temporary.”
1414
Westcott’s Letters
Like Hort’s son, Arthur Westcott too published his father’s letters in The Life and Letters
of Brooke Foss Westcott. Westcott’s letters, like Hort’s, reveal him to be a man who doubted the
truth presented in scripture. In many letters he even doubted whether he could consider himself a
believer as the excerpts show below:
“Oh the weakness of my faith compared with that of others! So wild, so sceptical am I. I
cannot yield.” (page 217)
“O Marie , (his wife's name) as I wrote the last word, I could not help asking what am I?
Can I claim to be a believer?” (page 217)
“It seems as if I am inclined to learn nothing; I must find out all myself, and then I am
satisfied, but that simple faith and obedience which so many enjoy, I fear will never be
mine.” (page 217)
“What a wild storm of unbelief seems to have seized my whole system.” (page 217)
1415
Westcott shared Hort’s skepticism regarding the scriptures. After receiving Hort’s letter
stating that Hort rejected the infallibility of scripture, Westcott wrote back that he
believed the word was true but not infallible. On May 5, 1860 he wrote the following to
Hort: “For I too ‘must disclaim settling for infallibility.’ In the front of my convictions all
I hold is the more I learn, the more I am convinced that fresh doubts come from my own
ignorance, and that at present I find the presumption in favor of the absolute truth—I
reject the word infallibility—of Holy Scripture overwhelming.”
1416
On another
occasion he writes: “If you make a decided conviction of the absolute infallibility of the
N.T. practically a sine qua non for co-operation, I fear I could not join you, even if you
 |