The Standpoint.

Now, at the outset of our discussion, let me point out that it is the common practice of advocates of new departures to invite you to discharge your minds of prejudices and presuppositions, and the present has been no exception to the rule. But this is an old controversial device, and, as a rule, it is no less than an invitation to you to shut your eyes and open your mouth, and swallow the conclusion of your opponent without a too searching scrutiny of his presuppositions or examination page 51 of his standpoint. As Neander says in the opening paragraph of his 'Life of Christ,' such an invitation is as vain as it is disingenuous. "We cannot entirely free ourselves from presuppositions—and the supposed freedom from them is but the exchange of one set for another." Though we have been invited to divest ourselves of what Dr Erwin calls our prejudices, we at all events shall be sufficiently frank to say that we shall make no pretence of the sort. We have our presuppositions, our standpoint, and Dr Erwin has his, and instead of making a pretence to divest ourselves of them, we ought at the outset on both sides frankly and fully to state what our presuppositions are. This would save us from entering on vain negotiations and controversy with the conclusions of which we can never agree.