Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

66

divinity, humanity, and office of Jesus Christ," and so of scores of other passages. Our friends ask for a Trinitarian test; well then, we have one. Do they tell us, that it is not sufficient that the book itself is Trinitarian, unless those who unite to circulate it are so also; and that the Society ought to be open only to those, using the words of Mr. Gordon's motion, who believe in " a triune God." Well then, I repeat we have exactly such a society as our friends wish; for they do not desire that an individual pledge should be given by every member, but only that the regulations of the Society itself should be such, that a Socinian knowing them, cannot join it without dissimulation. Here then is precisely what they demand; the whole matter is prepared to their hands: we not only give the book, but we give a pledge that we construe it in an orthodox manner; and we have even VIOLATED the strict RULE of NO COMMENT in such a way, that no Socinian can feel comfortable in joining us, any more than he could if we adopted Mr. Gordon's resolution. I do not myself think a test necessary for the simple objcct of circulating the word of God; but if it be, here is one already in existence. The member of the Bible Society, unless he protests against this heading, virtually says that the first chapter of St. John's Gospel inculcates "the divinity, humanity, and office of Jesus Christ." What would our friends have more? Is not this lawful? I do not mean, indeed, that any member pledges himself to all the headings and marginal notes of the authorised English translation, merely because he is content, upon the whole, that the copies should go forth as usually printed; [what does he mean?] there is no such compromise: many excellent persons in the Society may not like all these ANNOTATIONS, but at the same time I see not how any person who adopted the doctrines of Socinianism could honestly tolerate them. I AGAIN ADMIT that this is a BREACH of the treaty of strict NEUTRALITY, but I DO NOT REGRET IT (!!!); but whether it be wise or unwise, it is at least a proof that the institution is not Anti-trinitarian, even if the circulation of the simple text itself, faithfully translated, were not pledge sufficient.

[ocr errors]

Here we have A REPEATED ADMISSION, that the headings are "NOTES AND COMMENTS;" a "violation of the strict principle of there being neither note nor comment ;” and “a breach of the treaty of strict neutrality." And all this from the pen of a man, who says "at once and UNEQUIVOCALLY, that if the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, has, in any one instance, violated, or connived at the violation of, this fundamental rule, IT IS NO LONGER WORTHY OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE!" "NOT REGRET" that the Society he is defending "is no longer worthy of public confidence!" To restore the Society to that "confidence," of which it thus became no longer worthy," the only defence on which Mr. Wilks could light, was the peculiar circumstances of the case." What these are, he deigns not to inform Their peculiarity is evidently not limited to the English Bible. He tells us these headings were admitted "by all parties, by mutual compact." Where is the record of this compact to be found? He tells us further, that the violation was well defined, and incapable of extension." Where has the "definition" been given? As to its "incapability of extension," the Lausanne Testament, and most of the European Bibles, may illustrate that; and further illustration may be derived from a transaction which we now proceed to notice.

us.

66

A devoted missionary, travelling in Palestine, met with a Hebrew edition of the Bible, circulating by express directions of the Committee of the British and

Foreign Bible Society, which, being a Hebrew scholar, he rejoiced to find. To his deep concern and astonishment, however, on dipping at one occasion into the Songs of Solomon, he found them headed by an explanatory note-that these sacred and inspired writings of that anointed king of Israel, who was a type of our blessed Saviour, most probably were written in praise of some one of his concubines. P. 2.

And truly these headings are bad enough, if we are to judge from the specimen selected by the author of the letter. We will present our readers with a few :

Gen. i. "Traditio de creatione!"

Gen ii. "Alia traditio de creatione!!"

Job i. "Jobus virtutem suam â circuitore in suspiciam adductam inter durissime mala tuetur."

Cant. i. "Salomonis adulationes et impetus in virginis virtutem !!!

Does "the Member of the Bible Society, unless he protests against " these headings, "virtually" "endorse" them, as Mr. Wilks would say? Mr. Wilks amusingly endeavours to extenuate these abominations, by saying that traditio does not always mean tradition; what else it means in this passage he does not inform us. Speaking of the last cited heading, "I have much doubt," he says, "whether the word 'virtutem' was intended to convey the idea which is meant to be attached to it in the Sackville-street papers. Its classical meaning is fortitude, constancy; not of necessity female modesty." It is true enough that the penman of these headings seems to have been no great classic; but if our readers can make any sense of the context with Mr. Wilks's interpretation of "virtutem," they have the advantage of us.

The Society's defence on this point, in the hands of Mr. Wilks, amounts to this. The Canstein Institution, at Halle, offered to the Society, in the year 1818, four thousand copies of Reineccius's Hebrew Bible. Of these the Society took one thousand. Reineccius's Bible was highly spoken of in various bibliographical works; and Dr. Knapp, the conductor of the Canstein Institution, was known to be opposed to Neology. But all this while Mr. Wilks is blinking the gravamen of the charge. It seems that the Bible Society, neither in this case, nor in any other, ever interfered with headings. The admission of headings they thought perfectly consistent with the exclusion of notes and comments; and according to the best case that can be made out in their favour.

It was not till after much painful experience, that the conductors of the Bible Society became fully aware of the necessity of scrupulously collating foreign copies of the Scriptures in such minute particulars as the customary headings of the chapters. Pp. 5, 6.

Thus these headings were not only considered "customary," but the Society gave itself no trouble about them, till the scandal of their toleration resounded throughout Europe. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge permits headings, notes, and comments; but

where shall we find anything approaching to this in the multitudinous range of that Society's publications? The answer is but one, and the reason is, the Society is wholly conducted by orthodox persons.

But we are here necessitated to suspend our pen. We hope in our next number to conclude our view of this interesting question which is daily developing, with increasing emphasis, the forebodings of those sagacious men who, from the first moment of the Society's existence, foresaw its ultimate position and consequences. How far Churchmen may think, after attentively weighing the merits of the question, they can conscientiously remain members of the Bible Society, must depend on varieties of opinion; but we do not believe that any conscientious Iman will be frightened by Mr. Wilks's threat.

If the issue should be (not that I fear it will be, when the question is clearly understood in all its bearings) that a large portion of the Clergy and Church members should retire, the Society will still exist and flourish; but it will be, and NOT UNFAIRLY (!) a focus for the concentration of Dissenting strength which may shake the Church to its foundations. P. 142.

We do not think that the results would reach this crisis: if they would, right must still be done; but we have no doubt that hostility to the Church would prevail sufficiently within the Society, though we do not agree with Mr. Wilks that it would be "not unfairly," since we are unfashionable enough to prefer the existence of our Church to the prosperity of the Bible Society. But let thoughtful Churchmen reflect upon this threat, and infer from it the character of a body who, professing to have the SOLE OBJECT of circulating the Holy Scriptures without note or comment, may, by the admission of an advocate, undertake to "shake the Church to its foundations."

No. CVIII.

ART. II. Reviewers Reviewed: - Edinburgh Review. January, 1832. Edinburgh: Black. London: Longman. "THE present century has produced various biographies of English Prelates, all bearing one conspicuous mark of resemblance in the zeal and pertinacity with which they recommend to the admiration or acquiescence of mankind, all that has been done, and taught, and established by the CHURCH. The Church of Rome is infallible; and the Church of England never errs: which, if not in the abstract, at least, in the concrete, amounts to nearly the same thing." Edinburgh Review. No. CVIII. p. 312.

"Soon after his consecration, he (Cranmer) addressed to the king a letter, in which he zealously urged the necessity of bringing this important question (of the divorce) to a determination: and as the pious monarch had already been declared the head of the Church of England, he had no hesitation in returning an answer; which, says the biographer, 'was in perfect accordance with the Primate's suggestion, in which he forgot not to maintain the supremacy he had lately recovered. Of the origin and progress of the anomalous, and we will venture to add the absurd, maxim, that the king is the head of the Church, this may be considered as rather a curious account; for in what sense could Henry VIII. be said to recover a right or prerogative which had never been possessed by him or any of his predecessors?" Ibid. p. 318.

According to the canon law, marriage, which is one of the seven Sacraments, cannot be dissolved by any course of judicial procedure; and we may here remark in passing, that although the modern law of England does not professedly adhere to this notion of a Sacrament, it is not completely disentangled from the ancient superstition: the ecclesiastical courts may declare a marriage to have been invalid from the beginning, but they cannot dissolve the sacred bond of matrimony. We order these things better in Scotland, where marriage is considered as a civil contract, although it is generally accompanied with a religious sanction." Ibid. p. 319.

"It was in a great measure owing to his (Cranmer's) exertions, that the reformation of the Church of England was nearly advanced to that point where it still rests. That this reformation should have been left so incomplete, is less surprising than that it should scarcely have been resumed for 250 years. The most essential trappings of a proud popish prelacy were left uncurtailed, nor was the Church sufficiently purified from popish devices and observances. The papists enumerate seven Sacraments; namely, baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy order, and matrimony. Of these the Church of England has nominally retained two; but some others still linger under the shade of ancient superstition. Marriage, instead of being considered as a civil contract, retains a great portion of its former veneration as one of the seven and confirmation, a popish and unscriptural rite, is still in fresh observance, although no longer described as a Sacrament. Mr. Todd proceeds

to utter some of the traditionary jargon about the apostolical institution of episcopacy. If in any book written by the apostles, or during the apostolical age, he can point out a passage, which, either directly or by implication, sanctions the government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Archdeacons and Chancellors, we shall then be ready to admit, that the two Archbishops, and the twenty-four Bishops, driving with their stately equipages to Westminster, and, by virtue of their temporal baronies, taking their seats in the House of Lords, are the legitimate successors and representatives of those men, lowly in their outward form, but full of the Holy Ghost, who received the divine commission to go and teach all nations. According to this superannuated bigotry, a Church without Bishops is no Church. If all Presbyters had been denominated Bishops, would this substitution of one name for another have removed the impediment? The doctrine of the Apostolicals is, that there has been a perpetual succession of Bishops from the time of the Apostles to that of their representatives in Spain, England, Ireland, and other favoured countries; and that the influence of the Holy Spirit has thus been transmitted from one array of Bishops to another, through all the vicissitudes of eighteen centuries. The foul and polluted influence through which this divine influence must so long have continued to flow, seems to occasion as little difficulty to the English, as to the Spanish Apostolicals. This is but one degree better than transubstantiation; and to a man of sound understanding, unsubdued by early prejudice, it is just as easy to believe that the Bishop of Rome is the lawful successor of St. Peter... ... . It is not by arrogating to themselves the divine favour, and excluding other Churches from all participation of it, that the champions of the English hierarchy will best consult the credit and advancement of their own establishment; in which the idle splendour of one class of ecclesiastics is placed in so indecent a contrast with the laborious poverty of another. As the taste for describing their Church as apostolical, seems to have been recently revived, we will venture to suggest, that in the present state of public sentiment, the practice can be attended with no possible benefit. In Spain the direful tribunal of the Inquisition, was regularly described as apostolical; and we hear of such a public functionary as the Inquisidor Apostolico de Arragon but in Spain there were no Dissenters from the Established Church, and no newspapers or reviews, that deserve the name." Ibid. p. 325.

"The proceedings against Strafford are justified in our opinion, by that which alone justifies capital punishment or any punishment,-by that which alone

justifies war,-by the public danger. That there is a certain amount of public danger, which will justify a legislature in sentencing a man to death by an ex post facto law, few people we suppose will deny. Few people, for example, will deny that the French Convention was perfectly justified in declaring Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon, hors de loi without a trial. This proceeding differed from the proceeding against Strafford, only in being much more rapid and violent. Strafford was fully heard. Robespierre was not suffered to defend himself. Was there, then, in the case of Strafford, a danger sufficient to justify an act of attainder? We believe that there was. We believe that the contest, in which the parliament was engaged against the king, was a contest for the security of our property, for the liberty of our persons,-for every thing, which makes us to differ from the subjects of Don Miguel. We believe that the cause of the commons was such as justified them in resisting the king, in raising an army, in sending thousands of brave men to kill and to be killed. An act of attainder is surely not more a departure from the ordinary course of law, than a civil war. An act of attainder produces much less suffering than a civil war; and we are, therefore, unable to discover on what principle it can be maintained-that a cause which justifies a civil war, will not justify an act of attainder." Ibid. p. 533.

This is a fine specimen of the political, moral, and religious philosophy, which is, from time to time, prepared for the instruction of the readers of the Edinburgh Review. Great, unquestionably, have been the power and the success with which the conductors of that Review have laboured in perverting the public sentiment, and rendering the people indifferent and disaffected to the institutions of the country; but their triumph has not yet been so complete, as to give an undisputed sanction to all their dogmas, and to enable them to pass without examination or remark. Men are perhaps not yet prepared to agree with the Edinburgh Reviewers on the doctrine of the king's supremacy, on the occasional experience of acts of attainder, the apostolical authority and descent of episcopacy, the permanent obligation of the marriage contract, or the equal infallibility of the churches of England and of Rome.

It is with the most dignified complacency that the writer speaks "of the anomalous, and we will venture to add very absurd, maxim, that the king is the head of the Church." The Papist naturally objects to the doctrine of the king's supremacy, because it excludes the supremacy of the pope: the Dissenter, because he admits no head but Christ. We have never been able to agree in the sufficiency of the latter objection. We acknowledge, without the least reservation, that Christ is the Head of the whole Church; but in respect of the particular Church, as of the realm of England, we conceive the doctrine of the king's supremacy to be founded in a negation of the pope's supremacy; in a declaration, that the king and his dominions are independent of any foreign jurisdiction; and that whatever authority was formerly exercised by the pope, is now vested in the king, reigning and ruling according to the law. "The oath of supremacy is principally calculated as a renunciation of the pope's pretended authority," 1 Blackstone, 368.

« AnteriorContinuar »