History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology Part 25

I. THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD. By Frederic Temple, D. D. There is a radical difference between man and inanimate nature. The latter is pa.s.sive, and subject to the workings of the vast physical machinery, but man is at no time stationary, for he develops from age to age, and concentrates in his history the results and achievements of all previous history. There is no real difference between the capacity of men now and that of the antediluvian world; the ground of disparity lies in the time of development afforded the present generation. Thus a child of twelve stands at present where once stood the full-grown man.

There are three stages in the world's development: Childhood, Youth, Maturity. Childhood requires positive rules, and is made subject to them; youth is governed by the force of example; and manhood, being free from external restraints, must be its own instructor. We have first rules, then examples, and last principles:--the Law, the Son of Man, and the Gift of the Spirit. The world was once a child, under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the Father. Afterwards, when the fit season had arrived, the Example, to which all ages should turn, was sent to teach men what they ought to be; and the human race was left to itself to be guided by the instruction of the Spirit within.[171] The world, before the time of Christ, was in its childhood, when commands were given without explanation. The pre-Christian world, being in its state of discipline and childhood, was divided into four cla.s.ses: the Roman, the Greek, the Asiatic, and the Hebrew, each of which contributed something toward the world's improvement and its preparation for the age of Example. The Hebrew did the most, though his work was of the same cla.s.s and aimed at the same result. The Roman gave an iron will; the Greek, a cultivated reason and taste; the Asiatic, the idea of immortality, and spiritual imagination; and the Hebrew, the trained conscience.

The whole period from the close of the old Testament to the termination of the New was the time of the world's youth, the age of examples.[172]

Christ came just at the right time; if he had waited until the present age his incarnation would have been misplaced, and we could not recognize his divinity; for the faculty of faith has turned inwards, and cannot now accept any outward manifestations of the truth of G.o.d.[173]

The present age is that of independent reflection and the supremacy of conscience--the world's manhood. Laws and examples are absolute, and should be forgotten, just as we look lightly upon the things of our childhood. The world has arrived at its present exalted state through a severe ordeal, but the grandeur of its position is sufficient to make it forget its trials. "The spirit or conscience [which are terms for reason] comes to full strength and a.s.sumes the throne intended for him in the soul. As an accredited judge, invested with full powers, he sits in the tribunal of our inner kingdom, decides upon the past, and legislates upon the future, without appeal except to himself. He decides not by what is beautiful or n.o.ble, or soul-inspiring, but by what is right. Gradually he frames his code of laws, revising, adding, abrogating, as a wiser and deeper experience gives him clearer light. He is the third great teacher and the last."[174]

In some aspects this essay is the least objectionable in the volume. Yet it contains radical errors which many a reader would accept without suspicion. The agency of the Holy Spirit in revelation is ignored, and the development through which the world has pa.s.sed is confounded with civilization. This development is alleged to have occurred in a purely natural way, the Hebrew type being no more a divine appointment than that of the Grecian or Roman. The doctrines of Christianity were not clearly stated in the early Church, and the flight of eighteen centuries has been required to lift the curtain from them.[175] Conscience is placed above the Bible, and if the statements of the Scriptures be in conflict with it, allowance must be made for occasional inaccuracies, interpolations, and forgeries.[176]

II. $1nd Williams, D. D. We here find the same deference paid to conscience as in the preceding essay. If it differ from revelation, man's own notions of right and wrong must prevail over Scripture. Dr. Williams is contented with arraying Bunsen's skeptical theories before the British public without formally indorsing them himself; yet, as their reviewer, he is evidently in complete harmony with the German author. For he carefully collects the chevalier's extravagant speculations; brings them into juxtaposition; admires the spirit, boldness, and learning which had given birth to them; and in no case refutes, but looks with complacence upon nearly every one. The impression of a candid reader of the essay must be, that the writer indorses almost all of Bunsen's opinions without having the courage to avow his a.s.sent. Of his hero he says, "Bunsen's enduring glory is neither to have faltered with his conscience, nor shrunk from the difficulties of the problem, but to have brought a vast erudition, in the light of a Christian conscience, to unroll tangled records; tracing frankly the Spirit of G.o.d elsewhere, but borrowing chiefly the traditions of his Hebrew Sanctuary."[177]

The absence of that reverence to be expected in all whose vocation enjoins the frequent reading of the sublime liturgy of the Church of England, produces a depressing influence upon any one not in sympathy with the doctrines of Rationalism. The Evangelical theologians are termed "The despairing school, who forbid us to trust in G.o.d or in our own conscience, unless we kill our souls with literalism."[178] The inquiries and successes of the German Rationalists are worthy of hearty admiration, for they are so great that the world has seldom, if ever, seen their equal. Bishops Pearson and Butler, and Mr. Mansel are seriously at fault in their notions of prophecy, and even Jerome is guilty of gross puerilities. There is no reason why Bunsen may not be right when he holds that the world must be twenty thousand years old; there is no chronological element in revelation; the avenger who slew the first-born, may have been the Bedouin host; in the pa.s.sage of the Red Sea, the description may be interpreted with the lat.i.tude of poetry; it is right to reject the perversions which make the cursing Psalms evangelically inspired; perhaps one pa.s.sage in Zechariah and one in Isaiah may be direct prophecies of the Messiah, and possibly a chapter in Deuteronomy may foreshadow the final fall of Jerusalem; the Messianic prophecies are mere contemporaneous history; and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah is only a description of the sufferings of Jeremiah.

Inspiration is too loftily conceived by "the well-meaning crowd," for whom we should manifest "grave compa.s.sion."

What is the Bible, continues the essayist, but the written voice of the congregation, and not the written voice of G.o.d? Why all this reverence for the sacred writers, since they acknowledge themselves men of like pa.s.sions with us? Justification by faith is merely peace of mind from trust in a righteous G.o.d, and not a fiction of merit by transfer.

Regeneration is a correspondent giving of insight or an awakening of the forces of the soul; propitiation is the recovery of peace, and the atonement is our sharing the Saviour's Spirit, but not his purchase of us by his own blood. Throughout the Scriptures we should a.s.sume in ourselves a verifying faculty,--conscience, reason, or whatever else we choose to term it.

III. ON THE STUDY OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. By Baden Powell, M.

A. The author of this essay having recently died, he has therefore incurred less censure than he would otherwise have received. The views here expressed, taken in connection with his more elaborate treatise on the _Order of Nature_, do not place him on the same theoretical ground with Hume and Spinoza; but the moral effect of the present attack upon miracles as an evidence of Christianity is not less antagonistic than the theories of either of those authors. Spinoza held that miracles are impossible, because it would be derogatory to G.o.d to depart from the established laws of the universe, and one of Hume's objections to them was their incapability of being proved from testimony.[179]

Professor Powell objects to them because they bear no a.n.a.logy to the harmony of G.o.d's dealings in the material world; and insists that they are not to be credited, since they are a violation of the laws of matter or an interruption of the course of physical causes. The orthodox portion of the Church are laboring under the egregious error of making them an essential doctrine, when they are really a mere external accessory. Reason, and not "our desires" must come to our aid in all examination of them. The key-note to Professor Powell's opposition is contained in the following statement: "From the nature of our antecedent convictions, the probability of _some_ kind of mistake or deception somewhere, though we know not _where_, is greater than the probability of the event really happening in _the way_ and from the _causes_ a.s.signed."[180] The inductive philosophy, for which great respect must be paid, is enlisted against miracles. If we once know all about those alleged and held as such, we would find them resolved into natural phenomena, just as "the angel at Milan was the aerial reflection of an image on a church; the b.a.l.l.s of fire at Plausac were electrical; the sea-serpent was a basking shark on a stem of sea-weed. A committee of the French Academy of Sciences, with Lavoisier at its head, after a grave investigation, p.r.o.nounced the alleged fall of aerolites to be a superst.i.tious fable."[181]

The two theories against the reality of miracles in their received sense, are: _first_, that they are attributable to natural causes; and, _second_, that they may involve more or less of the parabolic or mythic character. These a.s.sumptions do away with any real admission of miracles even on religious grounds. The animus of the whole essay may be determined by the following treatment of testimony and reason: "Testimony, after all, is but a second-hand a.s.surance; it is but a blind guide; testimony can avail nothing against reason. The essential question of miracles stands quite apart from any consideration of _testimony_; the question would remain the same, if we had the evidence of our own senses to an alleged miracle; that is, to an extraordinary or inexplicable fact. It is not the _mere fact_, but the _cause_ or _explanation_ of it, which is the point at issue."[182] This means far more than Spinoza, Hume, or any other opponent of miracles, except the radical Rationalists of Germany, has claimed,--that we must not believe a miracle though actually witnessed.

IV. SEANCES HISTORIQUES DE GENEVE--THE NATIONAL CHURCH. By Henry Bristow Wilson, B. D. The Mult.i.tudinist principle, or Broad Christianity, is advocated by the essayist with earnestness and an array of learning. The difficulty concerning the non-attendance of a large portion of the British population upon the ordinances of the Church is met by the proposition to abrogate subscription to all creeds and articles of faith, and thus convert the whole nation into a Broad Church. The youth of the land are educated into a false and idolatrous view of the Bible.

But on the Census-Sunday of 1861, five millions and a quarter of persons, or forty-two per cent. of the whole population, were not present at service. Many of these people do not believe some of the doctrines preached; they have thought seriously, but cannot sympathize with what they are compelled to hear. If we break down all subscription and include them in the great National Church, we will approach the Scriptural ideal. Unless this be done they will fall into Dissenting hands, and die outside the Church of Christ. There are several proofs of the Scriptural indors.e.m.e.nt of Nationalism; Christ's lament over Jerusalem declares that he had offered Mult.i.tudinism to the inhabitants nationally, while the three thousand souls converted on the day of Pentecost cannot be supposed to have been individual converts, but merely a ma.s.s of persons brought in as a body. Some of the converts of the apostolic age did not believe in the resurrection, which fact implies that the early Churches took collective names from the localities where they were situated, and that doubt of the resurrection should now be no bar to communion in the National Church. Even heathenism in its best form proceeded on the Mult.i.tudinist principle, for all were included as believers in the faith of the times. The approval of reason and conscience, and not verbal adherence to human interpretation of Scripture, should be the great test of members.h.i.+p.

Advice is administered by the essayist to the Church of which he is a clergyman, in this language: "A national church may also find itself in this position; which, perhaps, is our own. Its ministers may become isolated between two other parties,--between those, on the one hand, who draw fanatical inferences from formularies and principles which they themselves are not able or are unwilling to repudiate; and on the other, those who have been tempted, in impatience of old fetters, to follow free thought heedlessly wherever it may lead them. If our own churchmen expect to discourage and repress a fanatical Christianity without a frank appeal to reason, and a frank criticism of Scripture, they will find themselves without any effectual arms for that combat; or if they attempt to check inquiry by the repet.i.tion of old forms and denunciations, they will be equally powerless, and run the especial risk of turning into bitterness the sincerity of those who should be their best allies, as friends of truth. They should avail themselves of the aid of all reasonable persons for enlightening the fanatical religionist, making no reserve of any seemingly harmless or apparently serviceable superst.i.tions of their own. They should also endeavor to supply to the negative theologian some positive elements in Christianity, on grounds more sure to him than the a.s.sumption of an objective "faith once delivered to the saints," which he cannot identify with the creed of any church as yet known to him."[183]

V. ON THE MOSAIC COSMOGONY. By C. W. Goodwin, M. A. The a.s.sumption is made that the Mosaic account of creation is irreconcilable with the real creation of the earth. We do wrong in elevating that narrative above its proper position, and orthodox geologists have grossly erred in attaching much importance to the language of the first chapter of Genesis. There is nothing poetical or figurative in the whole account; it contains no mystical or symbolical meaning, and is a plain statement of just so much as suited the Jewish mind. All attempts, however, to find any consistency between it and the present state of science are simply absurd. The theory of Chalmers and Buckland, and afterward that of Hugh Miller, are not tenable, for Moses was ignorant of what we now know, and his alleged description is contradicted by scientific inquiry. If then it is plain that G.o.d has not thought it needful to communicate to the writer of the Scriptural Cosmogony the knowledge revealed by modern researches, why do we not confess it? We would do so if it did not conflict with a human theory which presumes to point out how G.o.d ought to have instructed man.[184] The writer had no authority for what he a.s.serts so solemnly and unhesitatingly, for he was an early speculator who stated as facts what he only conjectured as probabilities. Yet he seized one great truth, in which he antic.i.p.ated the highest revelation of modern inquiry; namely, the unity of the design of the world, and its subordination to one sole Maker and Law-giver.[185] But no one contends that the Mosaic view can be used as a basis of astronomical or geological teaching; and we must therefore consider the Scriptural cosmogony not as "an authentic utterance of divine knowledge, but a human utterance, which it has pleased Providence to use in a special way for the education of mankind."[186]

VI. TENDENCIES OF RELIGIOUS THOUGHT IN ENGLAND, 1688-1750. By Mark Pattison, B. D. We are surrounded with a Babel of religious creeds and theories, and it is all-important that we should know how we have inherited them. If we would understand our times, we must know the productive influences of the past; if we would thread the present mazes of religious pretension, we should not neglect those immediate agencies in their production that had their origin near the beginning of the eighteenth century. These agencies are three in number: 1. The formation and growth of that compromise between church and state which is called Toleration; 2. Methodism without the Church and the evangelical movement within it; 3. The growth and gradual diffusion, through all religious thinking, of the supremacy of reason. The theology of the Deistic age is identical with Rationalism. That Rationalistic period of England is divided into two parts: from 1688 to 1750, and from 1750 to 1830. The second age may be called that of evidences, when the clergy continued to manufacture evidence as an ingenious exercise,--a literature which was avowedly professional, a study which might seem theology without being it, and which could awaken none of the dormant skepticism beneath the surface of society.[187] The defense of the Deists was perhaps as good as the orthodox attack, but they were inquirers after truth, and being guided by reason, they deserve all commendation. Yet they only foreshadowed the glory of the present supremacy of reason. Deism strove eagerly for light; it saw the dawn; the present is the noonday. The human understanding wished to be satisfied, and did not care to believe that of which it could not see the substantial ground. The mind was coming slowly to see that it had duties which it could not devolve upon others, and that a man must think for himself, protect his own rights, and administer his own affairs.

Reason was never less extravagant than in this first essay of its strength; for its demands were modest, and it was easily satisfied,--far too easily, we must think, when we look at some of the reasonings which pa.s.sed as valid.[188]

English Deism, a system which paralyzed the religious life and thought of the nation, has never had a more enthusiastic eulogist than the author of this historical plea for Rationalism. If the demands of the Deists were "modest," who shall be able to find a term sufficiently descriptive of the claims of their present successors?

VII. ON THE INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE. By Benjamin Jowett, M. A.

Professor Jowett, as commentator on St. Paul's epistles, had already so defined his position on the science of Scriptural exegesis, that we needed no new information to be convinced of his antagonism to evangelical interpretation. The present essay, which is the most formidable and destructive in the volume, commences with a lamentation over the prevailing differences in the exposition of the Bible. The Germans have been far more successful in this respect than the English people, the former having arrived at a tolerable degree of concurrence.

The word "inspiration" is a _crux theologorum_, the most of its explanations being widely divergent, and at variance with the original signification of the term. We make it embrace far too much, for there is no foundation for any high or supernatural views of inspiration in either the Gospels or Epistles. There is no appearance in those writings that their authors had any extraordinary gift, or that they were free from error or infirmity; St. Paul hesitated in difficult cases, and more than once corrected himself; one of the gospel historians does not profess to have been an eye-witness of the events described by him; the evangelists do not agree as to the dwelling-place of Christ's parents, nor concerning the circ.u.mstances of the crucifixion; they differ about the woman who anointed our Lord's feet; and the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy is not discernible in the New Testament history. To the question, What is inspiration? there are two answers: _first_, That idea of Scripture which we gather from the knowledge of it; and, _second_, that any true doctrine of inspiration must conform to all the ascertained facts of history or of science. The meaning of Scripture has nothing to do with the question of inspiration, for if the word "inspiration" were to become obsolete nothing vital would be lost, since it is but a term of yesterday. The solution of the various difficulties in the gospels is, that the tradition on which the first three are based was preserved orally, and, having been slowly put together, was written in three forms. The writers of the first three gospels were, therefore, not independent witnesses of the history itself. To interpret the Bible properly it must be treated as any other book, "in the same careful and impartial way that we ascertain the meaning of Sophocles or Plato....

Scripture, like other books, has one meaning, which is to be gathered from itself, without reference to the adaptations of fathers or divines, and without regard to _a priori_ notions about its nature and origin. It is to be interpreted also with attention to the character of its authors, and the prevailing state of civilization and knowledge, with allowance for peculiarities of style and language, and modes of thought and figures of speech; yet not without a sense, that, as we read, there grows upon us the witness of G.o.d in the word, antic.i.p.ating in a rude and primitive age the truth that was to be, s.h.i.+ning more and more unto the perfect day in the life of Christ, which again is reflected from different points of view in the teachings of his apostles."[189]

The old methods of interpretation, Jowett concludes, must give place to this new and perfect system, for the growing state of science, the pressing wants of man, and his elevated reason demand it. If this liberal scheme be inaugurated we shall have a higher idea of truth than is supplied by the opinion of mankind in general, or by the voice of parties in a Church.

It is interesting to notice the opinions of the evangelical theologians of Germany, who have long been accustomed to attacks upon Christianity, concerning these English critics. "The authors of the essays," says Hengstenberg, "have been trained in a German school. It is only the echo of German infidelity which we hear from the midst of the English church.

They appear to us as parrots, with only this distinction, common among parrots, that they imitate more or less perfectly. The treatise of Temple is in its scientific value about equal to an essay written by the pupils of the middle cla.s.ses of our colleges.... The essay of Goodwin on the Mosaic cosmogony displays the nave a.s.surance of one who receives the modern critical science from the second or tenth hand. The editor [Hengstenberg] asked the now deceased Andreas Wagner, a distinguished professor of natural sciences at the University of Munich, to subject this treatise to an examination from the stand-point of natural science.

The offer was accepted, and the book given to him. But after some time it was returned with the remark, that he must take back his promise, as the book was beneath all criticism.... All these essays tend toward Atheism. Their subordinate value is seen in the inability of their authors to recognize their goal clearly, and in their want of courage to declare this knowledge. Only Baden Powell forms in this respect an exception. He uses several expressions, in which the grinning spectre makes his appearance almost undisguisedly. He speaks not only sneeringly of the idea of a positive external revelation, which has. .h.i.therto formed the basis of all systems of the Christian faith; he even raises himself against the 'Architect of the world,' whom the old English Free Thinkers and Free Masons had not dared to attack."[190]

The _Essays and Reviews_ were not long in print before the periodicals called attention to their extraordinary character. Had they not been the _Oxford Essays_, and written by well-known and influential men, they would probably have created but little interest, and pa.s.sed away with the first or second edition. But their origin and a.s.sociations gave them weight at the outset. The press soon began to teem with replies written from every possible stand-point. Volumes of all sizes, from small pamphlets to bulky octavos, were spread abroad as an antidote to the poison. From trustworthy statements we are a.s.sured that there have been called forth by the _Essays and Reviews_ in England alone nearly four hundred publications. Hardly a newspaper, religious or secular, metropolitan or provincial, has stood aloof from the contest. Every seat of learning has been agitated, the social cla.s.ses have been aroused, the entire nation has taken part in the strife. Meanwhile, the High Church and Low Church have united in the cordial condemnation of the work. Even some of the First Broad Churchmen have written heartily against its theology and influence.

A remarkable feature of the whole controversy is the judicial prosecution of the essayists. Pet.i.tions numerously signed were presented to the bishops, praying that some action might be taken against them.

One protest contained the signatures of nine thousand clergymen of the Established church; and the bishops, without a single exception, took ground against the theological bearing of the _Essays and Reviews_. The Convocations of Canterbury and York, which possessed the full exercise of their legislative functions for the first time in one hundred and fifty years, declared against it, and pledged their influence to protect the church from the "pernicious doctrines and heretical tendencies of the book." After much deliberation and counsel, Dr. Williams and Mr.

Wilson were summoned before the court of Arches, the chief ecclesiastical tribunal of England. Finally, June 21, 1864, decision was p.r.o.nounced that they had departed from the teachings of the Thirty-Nine Articles on the inspiration of Holy Scripture, on the atonement, and on justification. They were therefore suspended for one year, with the further penalty of costs and deprivation of their salary. At the urgent solicitation of friends, in addition to their own strong desire to push their defense as far as possible, their case was brought before the Privy Council, a court of which the Queen is a member, and from which there can be no appeal. Contrary to the general expectation, the decision of the Court of Arches was reversed, and the essayists in question were restored to their functions. The reversal of the decision of the Court of Arches is couched in the following significant language: "On the general tendency of the book called 'Essays and Reviews,' and on the effort or aim of the whole essay of Dr. Williams, or the whole essay of Mr. Wilson, we neither can, nor do, p.r.o.nounce any opinion. On the short extracts before us, our Judgment is that the charges are not proved. Their Lords.h.i.+ps, therefore, will humbly recommend to Her Majesty that the sentences be reversed, and the reformed articles be rejected in like manner as the rest of the original articles; but inasmuch as the Appellants have been obliged to come to this Court, their Lords.h.i.+ps think it right that they should have the costs of this Appeal."[191]

This action was regarded by every skeptical sympathizer as a great triumph, and we may therefore expect the Rationalistic school to engage in still more important enterprises than any to which they have addressed themselves.

The most outspoken and violent attacks of critical Rationalism in England are contained in the exegetical publications of Dr. John William Colenso, who, in 1853, was consecrated Bishop of Natal, South Eastern Africa. He had previously issued a series of mathematical works which obtained a wide circulation; but his first book of scriptural criticism was the _Epistle to the Romans, newly translated and explained from a Missionary Point of View_. Having completed the New Testament and several parts of the Old, he was laboring a.s.siduously on a translation of the Bible into the Zulu tongue, when his former doubts concerning the unhistorical character of the Pentateuch revived with increased force.

The intelligent native who was a.s.sisting him in his literary work asked, respecting the account of the flood, "Is all that true?" This, with other inquiries propounded to him by the Zulus, led him to a careful reexamination of the Mosaic record.

The fruit of this additional study is the _Pentateuch and Book of Joshua critically examined, in Three Parts_. Appearing just at the time when the contest concerning the _Essays and Reviews_ was at fever-heat, the Bishop's work added excitement to all the combatants.

Those who are intimately acquainted with the treatment of the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua by the most unsparing of the German Rationalists will at once see the resemblance between their views and those of Colenso.

His aim is to overthrow the historical character of the early Scriptural history by exposing the contradictions and impossibilities contained therein; and also to fix the real origin, age and authors.h.i.+p of the so-called narratives of Moses and Joshua. "I have arrived at the conviction," says he, "that the Pentateuch, as a whole, cannot possibly have been written by Moses, or by any one acquainted personally with the facts which it professes to describe, and, further, that the so-called Mosaic narrative, by whomsoever written, and though imparting to us, as I fully believe it does, revelations of the Divine will and character, cannot be regarded as _historically true_.... My reason for no longer receiving the Pentateuch as historically true, is not that I find insuperable difficulties with regard to the _miracles_ or supernatural _revelations_ of Almighty G.o.d recorded in it, but solely that I cannot, as a true man, consent any longer to shut my eyes to the absolute, palpable self-contradictions of the narrative. The notion of miraculous or supernatural interferences does not present to my own mind the difficulties which it seems to present to some. I could believe and receive the miracles of Scripture heartily, if only they were authenticated by a veracious history; though, if that is not the case with the Pentateuch, any miracles, which rest on such an unstable support, must necessarily fall to the ground with it."[192]

In proof of this a.s.sumption the author selects a large number of inexplicable portions from the narratives in question, and uses all the resources of his talents and learning to prove them to be the fruit of "error, infirmity, pa.s.sion, and ignorance." Hezron and Hanuel, he avers, were certainly born in the land of Canaan; the whole a.s.sembly of Israel could not have gathered about the door of the tabernacle; all Israel could not have been heard by Moses, for they numbered about two millions of people, according to the a.s.sumption of the Biblical narrative. The Israelites could not have dwelt in tents; they were not armed; the inst.i.tution of the Pa.s.sover, as described in the book of Exodus, was an impossibility, the Israelites could not take cattle through the barren country over which they pa.s.sed; there is an incompatibility between the supposed number of Israel and the predominance of wild beasts in Palestine; the number of the first-born is irreconcilable with the number of male adults; and the number of the priests at the exodus cannot be harmonized with their duties, and with the provision made for them.[193] These, with other difficulties chiefly of a numerical nature, const.i.tute the basis on which the Bishop builds his objections to the historical character of Exodus as an integral part of the Pentateuch.

In order to determine the true quality of the Book of Genesis, he brings out the old theory that the work had two writers, the _Elohist_ and the _Jehovist_,--so called because of their separate use of a term for Deity. The Elohist was the older, and his narrative was the ground-work which the Jehovist used and upon which he constructed his own additions.[194] This Elohist account is defined to be "a series of parables, based, as we have said, on legendary facts, though not historically true."[195] The Pentateuch existed originally not as five books, but as one; and it is possible that its quintuple division was made in the time of Ezra. The writer of Chronicles was the same who wrote the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, probably a Levite living after the time of Nehemiah; the Chronicles were therefore written only four hundred years before Christ; but the Chronicler must not be relied on unless there is other evidence in support of his narrative. Exodus could not have been written by Moses or any one of his contemporaries.

It is very probable that the Pentateuch generally was composed in a later age than that of Moses or Joshua.[196] Samuel was most likely the author of the Elohistic legends, which he left at his death in an unfinished state, and which naturally fell into the hands of some one of his disciples of the School of the Prophets, such, for instance, as Nathan or Gad.[197]

Yet the writer of the Pentateuch must not be reproached for his errors as much as those who would attribute to him infallible accuracy. He had no idea that he was writing truth. "But," says the Bishop, "there is not the slightest reason to suppose that the first writer of the story in the Pentateuch ever professed to be recording _infallible truth_, or even _actual, historical truth_. He wrote certainly a narrative. But what indications are there that he published it at large, even to the people of his own time, as a record of _matter-of-fact, veracious history_? Why may not Samuel, like any other Head of an Inst.i.tution, have composed this narrative for the instruction and improvement of his pupils, from which it would gradually find its way, no doubt, more or less freely, among the people at large, without ever pretending that it was any other than an historical _experiment_,--an attempt to give them some account of the early annals of their tribes? In _later_ days, it is true, this ancient work of Samuel's came to be regarded as infallibly Divine. But was it so regarded in the writer's days, or in the ages immediately following? On the contrary, we find no sign of the Mosaic Law being venerated, obeyed, or even known, in many of its most remarkable features, till a much later time in history."[198]

The excitement occasioned by the publication of these views of Colenso was second only to that produced by the _Essays and Reviews_. There was a decided disposition on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities to deal summarily with him, since he had been intrusted with the Episcopal office, and sent as a missionary to the heathen. Several of the Bishops early took ground against his destructive criticism, and refused to allow him to officiate within their dioceses. The Convocations of York and Canterbury united in condemnation of his work. There was a difference of opinion as to the best method of depriving him of his episcopal authority. In the dilemma it was resolved to appeal to him without any appearance of legal pressure; whereupon the Bishops of England and Ireland, with but three exceptions, Drs. Thirlwall, Fitzgerald, and Griffin, addressed him a letter, in which he was requested to resign his office, since he must see, as well as they, the inconsistency of holding his position as Bishop and believing and publis.h.i.+ng such views as were contained in his exegetical works. His reply was a positive refusal, coupled with the statement that he would soon return to his See in Africa, there to continue the discharge of his duties. The Episcopal Bench of England failing to eject him, he was tried and condemned before an Episcopal Synod, which a.s.sembled in Cape Town, Southern Africa, on November 27th, 1863.

The charges against Colenso were:--his denial of the atonement; belief in man's justification without any knowledge of Christ; belief in natal regeneration; disbelief in the endlessness of future punishment; denial of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and of the truthfulness of what they profess to describe as facts; denial of the divinity of our blessed Lord; and depraving, impugning, and bringing into disrepute the Book of Common Prayer. Having been adjudged guilty, he was deposed from his office as Bishop of Natal, and thenceforth prohibited from the exercise of all ministerial functions within any part of the metropolitical province of Cape Town. Being absent in England at the time of the trial, Colenso was represented by Dr. Bleek, who protested against the legality of the proceedings and the validity of the judgment, at the same time giving notice of his intention to appeal. But the Metropolitan of Cape Town refused to recognize any appeal, except to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which must be made within fifteen days from sentence. Immediately after the deposition, the Dean of Natal, the Archdeacon, the parochial clergy, and the church-wardens of the diocese, signed a declaration, by which they pledged themselves not to recognize Colenso any longer as their Bishop.

Before Colenso was served with a copy of the decree against him, he issued a letter to his diocese, in which he denied the power claimed by the Metropolitan and the other bishops of Cape Town to depose him. He maintained that, of the nine charges brought against him, four had already been disposed of by the late judgment of the Privy Council in the case of the _Essays and Reviews_. In the meanwhile, his friends at home collected a fund of more than two thousand pounds to enable him to plead his cause before the English courts. The first proceeding in Great Britain commenced in 1863, before the judicial committee of the Privy Council. The case has finally been decided in Colenso's favor, the Lord Chancellor declaring the sentence p.r.o.nounced by the Bishop of Cape Town illegal, in the following words: "As the question can be decided only by the sovereign or head of the Established Church and depositary of appellate jurisdiction, their Lords.h.i.+ps will humbly report to Her Majesty their judgment and opinion that the proceedings taken by the Bishop of Cape Town, and the judgment or sentence p.r.o.nounced by him against the Bishop of Natal, are null and void."

But while this judgment of the Privy Council annulled the proceedings against Colenso, it also destroyed his Episcopal authority by p.r.o.nouncing that the letters patent of the Queen, by which he was made Bishop, had neither been authorized by any Parliamentary statute nor confirmed by the legislative council of Natal. His continuance in authority, therefore, was made dependent on the voluntary recognition of the clergy within the diocese of Natal. But the latest intelligence reveals the important fact that the clergy unanimously refuse to recognize his Episcopal authority, and have asked the Bishop of Cape Town to administer the diocese until a new appointment can be made for the See of Natal. The trustees of the Colonial Bishops' fund have also declared that they will no longer pay the salary of Colenso. He has already set sail for Southern Africa, but on his arrival will find himself without a clergy or a people to recognize his jurisdiction. Dr.

Pusey has written an interesting letter, in which he hails the decision of the Privy Council as an indication that the church of South Africa will soon be as free and prosperous as the Scotch Episcopal church and the church of the United States.

The remaining parts of the Bishop's _Commentary on the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua_ have met with a tardy and cold reception. We accept this as a hopeful sign that no great portion of the people are willing to adopt his theological views. The first two parts, however, created an excitement which was not confined to Christian lands. Even a Mussulman addressed a letter from the Cape of Good Hope to a Turkish paper at Constantinople, in which he gives an account of the Christians in that colony, together with a description of their multiform dissensions.

"Their priests," he writes, "all advocate different creeds; and as to their bishops, one Colenso actually writes books against his own religion." It may be more a gratification of the vanity than flattering to the piety of the late Missionary to the Zulus to be informed that already the Buddhists of India are making free use of his works as an invaluable aid in their controversies with the missionaries from Christian lands. Thus the herald of the cross of Christ in heathen nations must encounter not only the superst.i.tion and prejudices of paganism, but the infidelity exported from his own home, where for centuries the battles of the truth have been fought and won.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] _Essays and Reviews._ Edited, with an Introduction, by Rev. F. H.

Hedge, D. D. Boston, 1862.

[170] _Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles._--_Noyes' Essays_, pp.

222-276.

[171] _Essays and Reviews_, pp. 5-6.

[172] _Essays and Reviews_, p. 37.

[173] Ibid. p. 39.

[174] Ibid. pp. 35-36.