Viewed as hence be inferred that they did not know the jects, not evidences, of faith." physical facts, establishing the divine mis- And, in his book on the Soul, he said, "That the writings of the apostles were more peculiarly inspired than their spoken words, is a fiction invented in modern times."-P. 242. Mr. Jowett insists upon it, that in going to the heathen, "it is not the book of Scripture which we should seek to give them, but the truth of the book, the mind of Christ and his apostles." (P. 427.) ". a life of Christ in the soul, instead of a theory of Christ which is in a book, or written down." -P. 423. So Mr. F. W. Newman had argued, ten years before, saying,-"Did Paul go about. preaching the Bible?-nay, but he preached Christ-faith in the book was no part of Paul's gospel."-P. 141. 3. Dr. Temple tells us, that "conscience is the supreme interpreter, whom it may be a duty to enlighten, but whom it can never be a duty to disobey." "When conscience and the Bible appear to differ, the pious Christian immediately concludes" (not that his conscience can possibly err, but) "that he has not really understood the Bible."-Pp. 44, 45. In the same manner Mr. Newman had argued, that "No outward impressions on the eye or ear can be so valid an assurance to me of God's will as my inward judgment. How amazing, then, that Paul and James could look on Abraham's intention to slay his son, as indicating a praiseworthy faith!" But he then supposes the objection, that this "would amount to refusing leave to God to give commands to his creatures," and replies, that "of God we know nothing without, every thing within. It is in the spirit that we meet him, not in the communications of sense." "We discern a moral excellence in Christianity, and submit to it only so far as this discernment commands."-Pp. 152, 153. 4. Mr. Baden Powell had mystified us, by asserting that a miracle, being an impossibility, could only be received by faith. He had said, "a miracle, connected with religious doctrine, and asserted on the authority of inspiration," "can appeal only to the principle and influence of faith." Thus "it is clear the Gospel miracles are always ob But we found that even this absurdity had been borrowed from Mr. Newman, who had insisted that "Faith is essentially from within. To assent to a religious proposition solely in obedience to an outward miracle, would be belief, it would not be faith." "There is a deeper and an earlier revelation of God, which sensible miracles can never give." "Paul did not beat down his conscience in submission to outward impressions. To do so is to destroy the moral character of faith."-Pp. 154, 158. 5. The Messianic prophecies would open too large a question; and it must suffice to say, that every objection which is brought against them now by Dr. Rowland Williams had been stated by Mr. F. W. Newman so long as the year 1850. 6. Mr. Wilson, in the fourth Essay, discredits the gospel of St. John; telling us that "the remarkable unison of the first three gospels compels us to think that they embody more exact traditions of what Jesus actually said than the fourth does;" and that "there is no proof that St. John gives his voucher as an eye and ear witness of all which is related in it."-P. 161. All this had been already said by Mr. Newman, who thinks that John has made both the Baptist and Jesus speak as John himself would have spoken, and that we cannot trust the historic reality of the discourses in the fourth gospel." (P. 173). "Thus was I flung back to the three first gospels, as on the whole more faithful as a picture of the true Jesus than that which is exhibited in John." P. 176. 6. Dr. Rowland Williams, at page 84, and Mr. Wilson, at page 161, entirely deny the genuineness of the second epistle of St. Peter. And so had Mr. F. W. Newman, in his Phases of Faith, page 185, spoken of "the doubtful authenticity" of that epistle, and decided that, in one view, it was spurious." clearly 7. Mr. Wilson, at page 177, holds that the Sixth Article leaves every one free in judgment as to "the reality of demoniacal possession, and the personality of Satan." Mr. Newman, ten years ago, had said, "That painful and gratuitous imagination, the Devil, had become a waning phantom to me, from the time that I saw the demoniacal miracles to be fictions."-P. 189. 8. Dr. Temple rejoices that "the Bible, by its form, is hindered from exercising a des potism over the human spirit; if it could do that, it would become an outer law at once," but it imposes on us no yoke of subjection."-P. 45. And Mr. Newman, long ago, had protested against "the Protestant principle of accepting the Bible as the absolute law," and against "representing it as of all things most desirable to be able to benumb conscience by disuse, under the guidance of a mind from without."-P. 207. either the one or the other of these great truths. Yet we can believe, without much strain upon the imagination, that some of these writers, especially Dr. Temple and Mr. Jowett, do not really mean to abandon Christianity ;-do not justly appreciate their own position;-but imagine that they can retain the spirit of Christianity, while throwing off all allegiance to the letter. We feel that we ought to accept the declarations of such men; and look upon them rather as self-deceived, than as deliberate deceivers. Now Mr. Jowett's own words are these: "It is a mere chimera that the different sec 9. Lastly, the whole theme and argument of Dr. Temple's essay, that "Providence had been educating the world" by means of Egyptian, Greek, and Asian idolatries, and thence upwards through Christianity, was tions of Christendom may meet on the common all given in this same Phases of Faith, in ground of the New Testament? Or that the inthe year 1850. Mr. Newman had there ar-dividual may be urged by the vacancy and ungued that,― "The law of God's moral universe, as known to us, is that of progress. We trace it from old barbarism to the methodized Egyptian idolatry; to the more flexible polytheism of Syria and Greece; the poetical pantheism of philosophers, and the moral monotheism of a few sages. So in Palestine, and in the Bible itself, we see, first of all, the image-worship of Jacob's family, then the incipient clevation of Jehovah above all other Gods by Moses, the practical establishment of the worship of Jehovah alone by Samuel, the rise of spiritual sentiment under David and the Psalmists, the more magnificent views of Hezekiah's prophets; finally, in the Babylonish captivity, the new tenderness assumed by the second Isaiah and the later Psalmists; "P. 223. with much more of the same kind-all of which Dr. Temple has very plausibly expanded into an essay of forty-nine pages. profitableness of old traditions, to make the gospel his own,-a life of Christ in the soul, instead of a theory of Christ which is in a book or written down? Or that in missions to the heathen, Scripture may become the expression of univer sal truths, rather than of the tenets of particular men or churches?"-P. 423. "The Bible will no longer be appealed to as the witness of the opinions of particular sects, or of our own age; it will cease to be the battle-field of controversies." "The book which links together the beginning and the end of the human race, will not have a less inestimable value because the spirit has taken the place of the letter."-P. 425. "It is not the book of Scripture which we should seek to give them, to be reverenced like the Vedas or the Koran, but the truth of the book, the mind of Christ and his apostles, in which all lesser details and differences should be lost and absorbed."-P. 427. We repeat, that we are bound to believe, and do believe, that Mr. Jowett means exactly what he says. But then he is self-deluded. Indeed, to fancy that he can retain the building, after having cut away the foundation, is as strange and as lamentable a delusion as ever possessed any man's mind. Long ago was this perilous error detected and exposed in Dr. Robert Vaughan's admirable discourse on the Letter and the Spirit. A single passage from that powerful argument must suffice: Enough, then, has been given to show, that in all the characteristic features of their system, Theodore Parker, in 1847 and in 1859, Francis William Newman in 1850, and the seven essayists in 1860, are all in harmony. In language, indeed,-in freeness of tone and expression, there is just the difference which might be expected between men who, like Parker and Newman, have thrown off all conventional bondage, and those who, like the seven essayists, are professors in Oxford, or vice-principals, or head-masters "The words that I speak unto you,' said of colleges or schools, or incumbents of par- the Lord Jesus, they are spirit, and they are ishes in the established Church. But while life.' If this statement has meaning, it must there is this difference in the tone and free-mean, that the spirit and life of Christianity are dom of expression, there is none in actual not, where the words, the doctrines of Christiancreed. All are agreed, the seven as well as ity, are not. Reception of the words is necesthe two, in rejecting "supernaturalism," in sary to an experience of the life. placing conscience above the Bible, and in throwing altogether out of sight the grand topics of God's word-the introduction of sin, and the gift of a Saviour-man's ruin, and man's redemption. Our conviction is, that none of them have any real faith in "The religion of the letter, taken alone, is not only barren, but corrupting. It is not only de void of the fruits proper to true religion,-it is ion. But the religion of the spirit, as existing productive of fruits proper only to false relig among our philosophical spiritualists, is itself an error in an opposite direction. The religion of the letter alone, if carried fairly out, ends in a fanatical superstition. The religion of the spirit alone, if carried fairly out, ends in the most scientific form of mere deism. By the one, the Bible is denuded of its proper result; for souls are not regenerated. By the other, the Bible is denuded of its proper authority; for the authority of the interpreter becomes greater than the authority of the text. In either case, the loss is the loss of Christianity. In either case, there may be a kind of religiousness; but it will not be the religion of Christ. If the words-the doctrines of Christ, are to be without historical certainty and authority, then nothing higher is left to mankind than such systems of religion as may be generated by their own experiences, in accordance with their own sense of need. If we have not a Christianity sustained by authentic documents, we have none. All pretence to any thing certainly Christian, on the part of men who repudiate the historical proofs of Christianity, must be simply absurd. When such men tell us, that they have tried the historical argument, and found it fail them, and still claim to be regarded as in possession of all that was most valuable in primitive Christianity, we are constrained to ask them, How do you know that? Certainly, the man who can persuade himself that he has a right to claim a place among Christians, while giving up the historical evidence of Christianity, must be in a state of mind to persuade himself of any thing." The doctrine which offended poor Theodore Parker, and after him, Francis William Newman, and now the seven essayists, is Supernaturalism. Against this, with one consent, they all make war. Parker covered it with the most vehement reproaches, in his Discourse on Religion. Newman equally abhorred it. The seven essayists have a like feeling; but a natural caution prescribes the use of more moderate language. Dr. Temple begins by hinting that "physical science and researches into history, etc., have enlarged our philosophy beyond the limits which bounded that of the Church of the Fathers." We perhaps must not "interpret the first chapters of Genesis literally," "the narratives of the inspired writers had occasional inaccuracies," and so on. Dr. Rowland Williams suggests that "Questions of miraculous interference do not turn merely upon our conception of physical law, as unbroken, or of the Divine will, as all-pervading; they include inquiries into evidence, and must abide by verdicts on the age of records." "Those cases in which we accept the miracle for the sake of the moral lesson prove the ethical element to be the more fundamental." Mr. Baden Powell is more explicit, and asserts, in plain language, the doctrine of Strauss, that "the chain of endless causation can never be broken, and hence a miracle is an impossibility." Mr. Wilson particularizes, and names, as facts which we are not bound to believe, "the story of a serpent-tempter, of an ass speaking with man's voice, or an arresting of the earth's motion, of a reversal of its motion, of waters standing in a solid heap, of witches, and a variety of apparitions.” (P. 177.) In short, all that is supernatural, may be "accepted as parable, or poetry, or legend; "--but rejected as fact. Mr. Goodwin, in like manner, rejects the narrative of the Creation, and tells us, that "the human race has forgotten its own birth, and the void of its early years has been filled up by imagination, and not from genuine recollection." And Mr. Jowett, on the authority of his friends and coadjutors, adopts the same view, telling us, that "the best-informed are of opinion that the history of nations extends back some thousand years before the Mosaic chronology; recent discoveries in geology may, perhaps, open a further vista of existence of the human species; while it is possible, and may one day be known, that mankind spread not from one, but from many, centres over the globe; or, as others say, the supply of links which are at pressent wanting in the chain of animal life, may lead to new conclusions respecting the origin of man." (P. 349.) Thus the whole tenor of this new philosophy goes to banish the idea of God, and to enthrone what Mr. Powell calls "the universal self-sustaining and self-evolving powers which pervade all nature:" "the grand principle of the selfevolving powers of nature." (Pp. 134, 139.) Thus, with one voice, supernaturalism, or the existence of any Lord or Ruler of nature, is denied. Well, gentlemen, we are not going, at this moment, to enter into any argument with you on this vast question; but we do want to come to an understanding. It is very desirable, and in fact necessary, that things should be called by their right names. We ask, then, in plain English, Do you believe in the Bible? Do you believe the first chapter of Genesis, which sets forth, how God created or formed the present earth;-producing, step by step, land and sea, plants and fishes, beasts, and finally man; resting, after six days' work, on the seventh day, and hallowing that day for evermore? We have not the slightest doubt that all these seven essayists would answer, We believe nothing of the kind. Do you believe, then, the second chapter, which places man in a garden, and miraculously provides him with a consort and helpmate? Or the third, which describes the temptation, the fall, and man's punishment and expulsion? With one voice, we feel assured, the seven essayists would reject all this, classing it with "parable, or poetry, or legend."-P. 177. We pass on, then, to the fourth chapter, describing Cain's sin and punishment;-to the sixth and seventh, detailing the history of the deluge; to the eleventh, relating the confusion of tongues; to the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twenty-first, narrating the miraculous overthrow of Sodom, and the miraculous birth of Isaac: asking, Do these essayists give credit to any of these statements? The answer must be, No. Well then, let us quit the Old Testament, and open the New; and try if we shall fare better there. St. Matthew's first chapter narrates the visit of an angel to Mary, and the miraculous conception. Are these facts received by the seven essayists? Several of them have answered, and we believe that all must answer, if asked, No. The second chapter tells us of the star, and of the slaughter of the children of Bethlehem; and of two angelic visits to Joseph. The third shows us the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove, and tells us of an audible voice from "the excellent glory." The fourth describes the appearance of Satan, the fasting of Jesus for forty days and nights; and the casting out of devils. Do the essayists give credit to these things? They plainly tell us, No. In fact, the Bible is rejected. Supernaturalism is its character, from the beginning to the end. Not in one place, or two, or in ten, or in fifty, but throughout, it constantly introduces God as Creator, or Redeemer, or Sanctifier, overruling nature at his pleasure, with the same absolute will and power with which any human artificer disposes of his materials or his tools. "O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord." "No," replies Mr. Baden Powell, with a profaneness which it is fearful to contemplate," No, you cannot !" * truth of the Bible; but surely, if they style themselves Churchmen, they can hardly reject the creeds of the Church, the faith into which they were baptized, the faith which, at confirmation, they each personally professed,-the faith which, in subscribing the eighth article, they have declared "ought thoroughly to be received and believed." What say they, then, to the creeds, which, in common with all Christendom, the Church of England sets forth as her first, most positive, and most indispensable standard? The first creed declares God the Father to have been the Maker of heaven and earth. It declares his Son to have been conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of a virgin. It declares him to have risen from the dead, and to have ascended into heaven. And it avows a belief that his followers also shall rise from the dead to life everlasting. All this is "supernaturalism." The second creed adds, that God the Son, "for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven." This also is supernaturalism. We need not proceed through the third of these documents. It is enough to say, that if these seven essayists are consistent and sincere in rejecting supernaturalism in the Bible, they must reject it when they find it in the creeds also. But what have we then? Why, we have a chaplain to the queen, a head-master of Rugby school, a vice-principal of St. David's college, a vicar of Broad Chalke, a vicar of Great Stoughton, and two Oxford professors, not believing the creeds of the church,-those very creeds upon the profession of which they were admitted into communion with the church, and into the possession of all these honors and preferments! Can this be permitted? Is its continuance compatible with the Church's existence? If we find a state in which the highest crimes are tolerated, in which theft and murder are committed with impunity,-do we not say that it seems on the verge of dissolution, and, in fact, to be scarcely a state at all? But what is all this but a distinct rejection of the Bible, and of Christianity? If the Bible is plainly declared to have a great The highest crimes in a Church are infifalsehood intertwined with its every page, delity and idolatry. Have we not got them how is it possible to build any thing upon both in this volume? God's word is reit? Take away the word of God, the Divine jected; God's operative providence is denied ; revelation, and Christianity is gone also. and an idol styled "nature" is set up. If "Conscience," as it is called, reigns these things can pass with impunity, will premely," indeed, as Dr. Temple would have there remain a real, living Church? Will it, but alone. For such men to seek to re- there be any thing more than " tain the name of Christian, is at least some-ized hypocrisy "? thing approaching to a great abuse of words. 66 su But if not Christians, may rejecters of the Bible be still called Churchmen? Such a question may seem a strange one, but it is necessary to put it. The seven essayists might allege that they have never subscribed to the an organ Let us imagine, in our civil government, Probably most of them have forgotten the question put to them in their first ordination: "Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament?"-and their own answer: "I do believe them!" union, and the intent of the singularly quiet and unobtrusive appearance of the volume, is, we think, quite transparent. If this volume, which raises so many perplexing questions, is left without censure, it is difficult to see what notice can hereafter be taken of the broadest and plainest declaration of infidelity on the part of any minister of the Church of England. the occurrence of such deeds as are occa- horse, has involved many a man in the guilt sionally heard of in countries under arbitrary of treason. rule: the commission of murder, confisca- Though the device is new, the object of the tion, or ravishing by men in high authority: and no inquiry, or trial, or punishment following: would not all men exclaim, "England is lost; for the laws are dead!" But will it be a less calamitous state of things, if a Church which is based upon the Bible, and whose mission it is to teach Christianity, shall allow the Bible to be discredited, and Christianity to be utterly denied, by men holding high office within her pale? Must not the conclusion appear inevitable to the multitude, that there is no real faith, no genuine, earnest belief, anywhere in the Church for that, if there were, such offences could not pass unrebuked! Nothing can be clearer or more positive than the injunctions of Scripture in this matter. Without laying any stress on the commands of Moses, we have the plain and distinct directions of the great apostle of the Gentiles. (Titus i. 11; ii. 15; iii. 10.) And we cling to the belief that we have bishops in the Church of England in these days, who will not bring themselves under the prophet's rebuke. (Isa. lvi. 10.) Perhaps a doubt may be suggested by the singular device adopted by these seven writers. As a whole, the book is a deadly attack on Christianity and the Bible. But nobody has written the whole. Ask the head-master of Rugby, and he will tell you that he has only written a paper on the education of the world, and that he is "responsible for his own article only." Ask Mr. Goodwin, and he will reply, that he has merely contributed a paper on geology; and that it is not unusual for geological writers to question the strict accuracy of the first chapter of Genesis. And thus a most formidable engine for the propagation of infidelity is constructed, and yet no one admits that he is responsible for more than a single scientific essay! But, in secular matters, the combination of seven men, to do a certain illegal act, is always taken to involve every one of them in the whole guilt. The ringing of a bell, or the holding of a But, after all, we prefer to appeal to the common sense and common honesty of the essayists themselves. We cannot bring ourselves to regard such men as Dr. Temple and Mr. Jowett as deficient in either. We have shown that, substantially, the faith of these essayists is identical with that of Theodore Parker and F. W. Newman. Why, then, are they not equally straightforward in their conduct? When Parker and Newman gave up the faith in which they had been educated, they abandoned the outward profession of Christianity. They became infidels, and as infidels they were treated. America is the land of entire liberty and freedom from all restrant; but when Parker had made his faith, or rather his want of faith, known, a broad line was at once drawn between him and the Christian churches of the United States. The most popular minister in America, Mr. Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, was obliged to preach and publish an apology for having been once seen on a platform on which Mr. Parker also appeared. As for Mr. Francis Newman, we all know his position in our own country. It never seems to have occurred to him that he might remain in a church after he had abandoned the faith of that church. Yet strange to say, some of these essayists, after adopting and maintaining a principle which makes prayer a practical absurdity, actually pretend to offer up prayer in the great congregation; read Scripture to the people, believing it to contain falsehood; and stand up, in the open face of day, to repeat creeds, the chief articles of which they utterly reject and deny! Ir is a curious fact that two lakes resembling those great sheets of water lately discovered by Captains Burton and Spike in Eastern Africa, are laid down on a map published in the French edition of Dapper's African (Amsterdam, 1686). Dapper puts the lakes some degrees too far to the south, but their relative position is the same as that of Sanganyika and Nyanza. None of the geographical journals have yet noticed this singular coincidence.-Tribune. |