There are two things which may fairly be regretted in regard to the criticisms—often the very kind and encouraging criticisms—which this book has received. There is, first, the disproportionate attention which has been given to some twenty pages on the subject of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, an attention so disproportionate as to defeat the object which the writers had in view in assigning to that subject its place in the general treatment of the work of the Holy Spirit—the object, namely, of giving it its proper context in the whole body of Christian truth: and there is, secondly, the fact that we have not generally succeeded in gaining the attention of our critics to the point of view from which these ‘studies’ were written, and the purpose they were intended to serve.

Our purpose was ‘to succour a distressed faith’ by endeavouring to bring the Christian Creed into its right relation to the modern growth of knowledge, scientific, historical, critical; and to the modern problems of politics and ethics. We were writing as for Christians, but as for Christians perplexed by new knowledge which they are required to assimilate and new problems with which they are required to deal. What is needed to help men in such perplexity is not compromise, for compromise generally means tampering with principle, but readjustment, or fresh correlation, of the things of faith and the things of knowledge.