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VI

THE LIBERTY OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM.

1 THESS. V. 21.

Ir has been said that those who sign the Articles bind themselves down to a rigid set of opinions, and this being the case, that it is incomprehensible how the clergy of the Church of England, holding the wide variety of opinions that they do, can all hold office under the same Articles without some of them being dishonest.

This is so common an accusation and founded on so common an ignorance, that it is worth while to give it a brief reply.

First. It has been said that the Church of England was a compromise. That is true and not true. It is not true that the Church compromised any vital point of doctrine. The great doctrines we are required to believe are laid down with determined clearness. But there is a difference between doctrines and our opinions about them. Ten men may confess the truth of the Atonement and repose the peace of their hearts upon it. But each of those ten men may formulate the doctrine differently with regard to the mode in which the Atonement is effectual, and though it is important for life how men conceive that mode, it is of minor importance. It is in this sphere of opinions about doctrines that the Church of England made a compromise. I believe

that the writers of the Articles wished to include in the

Church men who agreed on large outlines of doctrine, but who differed widely as to the intellectual form in which they cast those doctrines. We are bound, for example, to believe the doctrine of Original Sin, of a fault and corruption in our nature, but what that infection of our nature is—whether physical or moral, whether an actual sin imputed to us or a tendency towards sin, or the general defectiveness of our humanity-is left undetermined, and from the time when the Article was written to the present day four or five opinions as to the nature of Original Sin have been held by divines of the Church and considered to be legally and honestly held within the terms of the ninth Article. It is the same with many others of the Articles. The doctrine is required, but the intellectual form of the doctrine is left open for the play of the conscience and the intellect.

Secondly. They were to be subscribed according to their 'literal and grammatical meaning,' and that meaning is determined by law. One would say that that settled the question as to their rigidity of meaning. On the contrary, in many cases, it throws the Articles open. For when terms are chosen which have several meanings, the sentence in which these terms are used is literally and grammatically true in different senses. Take, for example, a well-known instance in the Third Article: As Christ died and was buried, so also it is to be believed that He went down into Hell.' Now the writers of the Articles knew very well that to this word Hell three distinct meanings were given by divines: the Grave, the Hades, and the actual Hell of lost spirits, and that two at least of these meanings were connected with two opposed theological schools. We believe it was their intention to include all those

who held these meanings, and, in order to enable them to sign the Article, they did not define what they meant by Hell. Therefore, when the terms used are not defined in themselves or by the context, and different meanings have been given to them within the Church, we are left free by the Articles to allot to them our own meaning, provided that meaning does not implicitly or explicitly contradict any clearly-defined doctrine.

Whether all this was very wise, whether the freedom it gives us has not evils which spoil it, whether the position in which it places us now before the laity is becoming untenable, whether it would not be better to do away with the test of the Articles altogether, or whether if we did we should glide from a bad position into one much worse, is not now the question.

This is at present our position, and I have stated it that I may introduce to you what I believe to be an intentional ambiguity in the Sixth Article, which bears upon the subjec on which I spoke to you last Sunday, and which I discuss to the end to-day. That subject is the free criticism of the Scriptures in relation to the judgment of the Privy Council.

The first question is, Does the Sixth Article prevent us from discussing the Apostolical authority of all or any of the books of the New Testament? I reply, that it does not do so, in the case of some at least. A strange ambiguity in it-too strange, I think, not to be intentional-permits those who subscribe to the Articles to express doubts as to the authority of such canonical books as have been doubted in the Church. 'In the name of Holy Scripture,' so runs the Article, 'we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority there was never any doubt in the

Church.' We have then a list of the names and number of these canonical books in the Old Testament. A list is then given of the Apocrypha, and its books are not applied to establish any doctrine. But no list is given of the books of the New Testament; only these words are written all the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive and account them as canonical.' Now the omission of the catalogue in this case leaves a difference between canonical books of the New Testament and such canonical books as have never been doubted in the Church.

This is a remarkable ambiguity. Was it intended ? Did the compilers of the Articles leave us intentionally a certain freedom of opinion on the authority of certain books? I think it was an intentional ambiguity for these reasons. The compilers knew well that the Apostolic authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, of that of 2 Peter, of the Epistles of S. James, of S. Jude, of the 2 and 3 of S. John, and of the Apocalypse, had been continually disputed in the Church, and apparently they did not wish of their own judgment to determine the question. They knew that the continental reformers had also doubted the Apostolic authority of several of these books. Calvin did not believe that the Epistle to the Hebrews was by S. Paul, and he doubted that the 2 Epistle of Peter was the work of that Apostle, but he did not deny, as we do not, the canonicity of these books. Luther, on internal grounds, spoke against the canonicity of Hebrews, Jude, James, and the Apocalypse, and the Lutheran Church admits the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments, without making any distinct declaration of the books which are to be admitted. A freedom of opinion has thus been left to the Lutheran theologians and

they have freely used that freedom. Ecolampadius declared that the seven disputed books were not to be placed in the same rank as the others. Now as long as the authenticity is doubted, the Apostolic authority remains in abeyance, even though the canonicity is allowed.*

The authors of the Article were not unaware of these doubts, and it seems that they left the question undecided by giving no list, choosing rather to be ambiguous than to restrict freedom.

We have made use of this liberty. We have held ourselves permitted to deny, if we see fit, the Apostolic authority of these books and to doubt their authenticity, though not their canonicity.

But one might almost think that this freedom granted to us by the Articles was unknown to the judges, and the words of the judgment seem to take it away. We are told, in a strange inversion of the sentence of the Article, that 'the sixth Article lays down that there was never any doubt in the Church of the authority of the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments.'

What might we infer from that sentence, literally interpreted? We might infer that all the books of which there was doubt have no authority and are excluded from the canon. So that legally and on the curious authority of two archbishops we might be bound to deny the authority of the seven disputed books, a question which the sixth Article has only left in doubt; and to deny their canonicity which the Article accepts. This

*My authority for this statement of the ambiguity of the sixth Article, and the difference it leaves between canonical books of the New Testament and such canonical books as have never been doubted in the Church, is the Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, our highest authority on the Canon. I have used here and there his very words. See Westcott's Canon of the New Testament,' pp. 534, 535.

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