6

We have now considered both Bishop BROWNE's methods of explaining the Elohism and Jehovism of the Pentateuch,' with respect to which he says, p.45,

Now these explanations are surely possible solutions of the difficulty which Bishop COLENSO declares to be insuperable. I firmly believe that one of these solutions is indeed the true (!!)

I have examined at length Bishop BROWNE'S Fourth Lecture, in which he treats of the Psalms, in the Second Appendix to this volume. His Fifth (and last) Lecture contains a number of general arguments, loosely put together, which are based on statements sometimes true, sometimes fallacious, but do not require from me any particular notice, after the careful consideration which I have given to the more important parts of his Work. The reader will find, however, a few observations upon some of the statements of this, as well as the First, Lecture in the Chapter of 'Concluding Remarks' at the end of this Part.

Let me now express my grateful sense of the service, which the venerable Bishop of LIMERICK has rendered to the cause of Truth and true Religion by the following utterances, which I extract from his recent Charge, delivered in the cathedral of Limerick, Sept. 29, 1864.

I. The Church of Rome maintains that the Bible must be received on the authority of the Church, and no other. She contends that, if we were to enquire into the grounds, on which we receive these documents as containing a revelation from God,

This is just what Bishop GRAY maintains in the Church of South Africa: 'To sum up, we believe the Scriptures to be the Word of God, because the Church, under the guidance of the Spirit of God, declared them to be such.' — Charge to the Clergy of Natal, p.34.

"That Creed [the Apostles'], though in strictest accordance with Scripture, is a witness in addition to Scripture. Both owe their origin to the Church, under the Inspiration of the Spirit of God.'-Sermon at Maritzburg, p.13.

'How do I know for certain that the Bible is the Word of God,-what the true Canon is,-in what light I am to regard the Sacred Scriptures,-except through the

we should only involve ourselves in a labyrinth, from which there is no clue to conduct us, and that, whenever we desert that high authority, errors and contentions, and ultimately infidelity and impiety, have been the results. . . .

...

We, on the other hand, maintain that our sole reliable ground for receiving such documents is historical testimony. True, it may be attended with great labour to trace up the links of the chain,‚—a labour surpassing the reach of any one life, however long and learned. But this labour seems to have been originally designed for 118. If we have been doomed to eat the bread of this life in the sweat of our face, it may be the same in attaining that of the life to come. . . .

II. The next point is with regard to the interpretation of the Bible, a point closely connected with the former, though they are quite distinct in their respective operations. By the one we ascertain what an author has actually written; by the other what is his meaning. . . .

The Church of Rome maintains that the interpretation, as well as the text itself, must be received on her authority alone.*

...

Such claims we cannot admit. In interpreting the language of Scripture, we proceed as we do in every other ancient document that has come down to us. We employ all the aids that collateral and contemporary authorities supply But there are extremes in all things: and this wise caution has ever been observed by all the men of light and reading in our Church. When, then, we say that 'the Church is the witness of Holy Writ,' we do not pledge ourselves to an implicit adoption of their interpretations, any more than in the former case we do to an unhesitating adoption of the text. We do not part with our own right of judgment, though we pay due respect to their authority.

...

There is a large number of our brethren who maintain that Inspiration pervades

voice of the Church, to whom the Lord promised He would guide it into all truth?' -Charge to the Clergy of Cape Town, p.56.

* This, too, is maintained by Bishop GRAY in the Church of South Africa :— 'On the very same grounds we believe the Creed [he says afterwards 'the Creeds'] to be the true interpretation of the Word in all essential points. It was framed by the Church under the same guidance, vouchsafed in consequence of the same promises.'

'One step further I will go. The Creeds, interpreted as the Church (which drew them up under the Spirit's guidance) intends them to be interpreted, contain the whole Catholic Faith.'

*

'What the Catholic Church, while yet One, during the first thousand years of her history, under the Spirit's guidance in her great Councils, declared to be, or received as, the true Faith, that is the true Faith, and that we receive as such. More than this we are not bound to acknowledge: less we may not.—Charge to the Clergy of Natal, p.34,35.

the whole of that volume [the Bible],—that it is equally in all and every part,— that, no matter who may be the writers, no matter what the subject, all alike issues from the teaching of the Holy Spirit, . . . all alike equally bears the stamp of Divine Inspiration, all alike is guarded from the possibility of error, even in the minutest details, by the presence and prompting of the Divine Spirit;* . . . and no subsequent discovery, whether in history, chronology, and physical science, or any other department of human knowledge, can be admitted for a moment, if at variance with the Inspired Records either in their literal or presumed meaning. No exception, no qualification, is admitted. One of the most recent and eminent advocates of this opinion puts it forward in the following words, too full and emphatic to admit of any,-'The Bible is none other than the voice of Him who sitteth upon the throne: every book of it, every chapter of it, every word of it, every syllable of it, every letter of it, is the direct utterance of the Most High'.. It is an opinion, I candidly own, I cannot subscribe to. Nay, I apprehend that, as in other cases we may lose what we are justly entitled to claim by asking too much, so it may be here. In saying this, I have no mean authorities at my side. The venerable HOOKER's words are:

'As incredible praises given unto men frequently abate and impair the credit of their deserved commendation, we must likewise take care lest, in attributing to Scripture more than it contains, the incredibility of that may cause even those things which it hath to be less reverently esteemed.'

And again Bishop BURNET in his discussions, Art.VI, has these words:

'The laying down a scheme that asserts an immediate inspiration, which goes to the style and every title, though it may seem on the one hand to raise the honour of the Scriptures highly, lies open on the other hand to great difficulties, which seem inseparable from such an bypothesis; whereas a middle way, as it maintains the Divine Inspiration in all thai for which alone we can conceive Inspiration given, helps us out of these difficulties by yielding that which serves to answer them, without weakening the authority of the whole.'

To these wise words I heartily subscribe my assent. But, without calling in the aid of such authorities, I must maintain that, when a claim of such magnitude is put forward, the onus probandi rests with those who maintain it. Vehemence of assertion will not suffice. It will not do to say, 'The Temple of the Lord are we!' -to say, 'Let the irreverent hand, that would touch one stone, beware lest in its fall may grind him to powder.'

it

* I need hardly say that this is another dogma, which Bishop GRAY wishes to enforce upon the clergy in the Church of South Africa.

'The Church regards, and expects all its officers to regard, the Holy Scriptures as teaching pure and simple truth. It is nothing to reply that they teach what is true in all things necessary to salvation.'-Trial, p.390.

But it is said, 'Is it consistent with our notions of a God of Truth and Mercy to suppose that He would lay such a stumbling-block in our way, as to commit the sacred oracles to men, who would speak anything but what the Lord had put into their mouths, or mix up unimportant details with the words of Eternal Life?

To this objection an answer is, in my mind, supplied by... the great and original BUTLER. . . . He shows our incapacity of judging what was to be expected in a Revelation, and, further, the credibility from Analogy, that it might be attended with circumstances liable to objection.

The words which I have above italicised give at once the reply to Bishop BROWNE's reasoning, when he says, p.13,14We can never suppose' Think whether it is conceivable. "Is it conceivable?' It seems utterly impossible-incredible'

How can we believe?' &c. We have nothing to do with our own à priori conceptions.' If the facts plainly show—as they undoubtedly do that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch, we must accept this result, and modify our views, as to what was probable or possible, accordingly.

The recent decision of the Privy Council has left me free to speak the truth to my Flock, as GOD has given me to see it, without let or hindrance on the part of the Metropolitan, though subject still to the control of Her Majesty in Council, to whom we are both amenable for any violation of the trust committed to us. Bishop GRAY, however, in his recent Charge to the Clergy of Capetown, has expressed himself as follows, p.18:

With regard to Bishops [in the colonies], there are two documents, which contain the terms of their contract-the Letters Patent and the Consecration Service.

I. Now, with regard to the former, they are clearly framed upon the understanding that the 'doctrine and discipline of the United Church of England and Ireland,' the 'forms and usages' of the same, the 'rites and Liturgy of the Church of England,' will be maintained by them. But there is no positive statement that this is to be the case. And I confess that I entertain some doubt and apprehension whether I could, under the terms of the Letters Patent, and looking at the actual practice and proceedings of the Churches of our Communion out of England, compel a Suffragan of this Province to abide by the forms and usages, the rites and Liturgy, of the Church of England, if he chose to depart from them, either in the public worship of the Church, or-in what is of still greater moment--the Ordina

tion of Priests to minister to the Flock of Christ. Those forms and usages have, we know, in the case of what is called the Jerusalem Bishopric, been departed from. In that case it was distinctly understood that acceptance of the Thirty-Nine Articles was not to be a necessary qualification for admission to Holy Orders.* ... II. But, if the Letters Patent should fail to bind a Bishop to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England, would not the engagements which he enters into at his Consecration do this? Dr. COLENSO... thinks that they would. . . . He regards himself as a Bishop of the National Church, under the government of the laws provided for the government of the Establishment in England, to be administered by the Court of Appeal created by those laws for the Establishment.† His avowed understanding, as to the terms upon which he accepted his office, marks out very clearly the extent of his own moral, and, perhaps, legal obligations. . . He appears to think that Colonial Bishops signify their assent at their Consecration to the Canons of 1603, and that by them, as well as by the oath of the Queen's Sovereignty then taken, they submit themselves to the whole Ecclesiastical System

* Bishop GRAY himself, as I conceive, has set an example of departing from the doctrine and the discipline of the Church of England, in attempting to depose a Bishop for saying what any Deacon would have the most perfect right and liberty to say in any Parish Church in England. And, as to departing from the 'forms and usages,' it would surely be a mockery to require a native candidate for Orders to sign his adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles' or to the 'Athanasian Creed,' which it is utterly impossible to translate into his language, or to use in the congregation a mere travesty of the grand English Liturgy,-for such must be any attempt to convey literally into the tongue of a barbarous people the majestic phrases of our Prayer-Book, the result of centuries of high culture, and existing in a language which combines the force and power of expression of a number of others. + Bishop GRAY has repeatedly stated or implied that in my recent proceedings I have regarded the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the 'Court of Appeal' for the Colonial Church. But this is a mistake. I regard myself, while holding the Queen's Letters Patent, as being under the protection of Her Majesty; and I appealed to Her for that protection against the proceedings of an episcopal Brother, who also held Letters Patent from the Crown, and professed to act under their authority. If Bishop GRAY had resigned his Patent, I should have had no reason for appealing directly to the Crown against his conduct, however injurious or arbitrary. But then I should not have needed to do so. The whole strength of his position arose from the fact that he professed to act with authority derived from the Crown, to which loyal subjects would naturally wish to pay all due respect. I appealed, then, to the Queen Herself against the proceedings of her Patentee, and not to the Judicial Committee; and Her Majesty was pleased to refer the matter for advice to the Judicial Committee.