The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1867-05-21 00:00:00

THE BISHOP'S CHARGE.

The Bishop of Ssliebury, if sr* remember aright,
was very indignaot with S.G.G., for speaking of a
Bishop u • " hooky Parma," Ind, indeed, he bad
some canoe for hill indignation; we do not know any
more 'astute* individual, than • clergyman, who
might have lived and died respected in quiet roontry
parish, and even passed for a Scholar and Divine
among his less educated neighbours, hut who has by
some inexplicable providence been raised to a position
of authority and einioaton, simply to show his want
of those f„ifts and grams which give dignity to that
position. Every important opportunity, which a
great man would use, not obly to the Church's ad.
*outage, but to his own credit, only serves to make
his want of capita, more palatally evident.
Never had • Bishop • finer opporathity of exhibiting
the power of fihriatian trbidom, lritraing, and candour
than the primal I did a Bishop exhibit • more
lamentable want of all these qualifioatiotte. trod
with a Considerable amount of "Church IJoion -tent-
tare," he has for three bou‘*.- three quarters
poured oat epo's bib linfortithate hearers, argumenta-
tions devoid of reasoning; protestations that ill supply
the plaoe of sincerity; garbled extracts from the tor-
mularrir* of the Church, interlarded with scraps of
Lalshilla Greek, which might astonish the ladies, but
which weresimply *ethos's, of 'riposted men ludicrous
'Stemple at profound scholarship. A man who is
earnest, and knows what he is talking about, can
make himself understood in a few words, and by the
use of the simplest expressions. The unction that
has agitated this Mame it, Does our Bishop repro.
' sent the Chant of Fogland, or the Church of Rome?
An boneei Churchman can explain the Church's
teaching on the Sacraments and Ministry in five
minutes; an honest Romanist can explain the
teaching of his Church in the same time: the
Bishop of Salisbury takes three hours and three
quarters to explain his opinions, and does not
explain them at last: through the wildernees of
words, and explanations. and cautions, and figures,
and quotations, we am • dim outline of a religious
system, and as far as we can sea,, it is simply Romish
and not Suglish, while in the whole treatment
of the "'object we see • pineal want of clearness and
candour. Put let us mike some specimens. First,
with regard to the priesthood, we read :

"Such, my Brethren, is, I believe, thq doctrine of
Christ about the priestly powers of the Apostles suxd
those whoth they sent forth, even as they themselves
had been sent forth by the Lord.
I assert that the Apostles, and those who have
received the commission from them, have ministrations '
entrusted to them, through which the bread and wine
become at Holy Communion the Body and Blood of
Christ, and the Church presents before the Throne of
Grace that which is present, via, Christ's Body and
Blood in the fiacranient, and by such offering pleads
with Christ and through Christ with the Father; or, in
other words, gives in her highest act of worship, and
praise, and adoration, expression to the full meaning of
those words with which we ever close our prayers,
whether supplications for ourselves or Intercession for
others, 'through Jesus Christ our Lord; "
I also maintain that the Apostles, and they who lsave
come after them throvlgh their appoihtment, have
power entimste.l to them to make sinners partakers of
the mercies of God in Christ, and that they use this
Power ministering the Word of God, and the two
Sacraments, and by loosing them in the ordinance of
absolution from the bonds by which they have been
held."

"Rut still the doctrine of saorifies has most certainly
its place in our service, for it is inseparable from that
set of onsascration, which alone makes a real obrumunion
with Cluist's sacramental life possible."

"And this, at any rate, you will, I am sure, gib] by
such studies You will gain the strongest assurance
that the °Moe and work of a pried is • real work, real
in the sense of its being an instrument of the Holy
Ghost in incorporating mankind into tha humanity of
the Word made flesh.'
" (2.) That, for example, God has been pleased to giv
to them, as His ministers, the power of so blessing
oblations of bread and wine as to make them the
channels of conveying to the soul, for its strengthening
and refreshing, the Body and Med of Christ.
(3.) That as Christ, our ascended Lord, is now ever
pleading His one sacrifice, so these ministers of Christ,
as His representatives, plead on earth that which he
pleads in Heaveil.
. . . .

(4.) That God, who alone can forgive sins, has
delegated to these same His ministers the power and
authority of ministering to those fittted to receive it,
the pardon of their or to express the manic thing
in very well known wonls —"Almighty Cod, the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, bath given power
and commandment to His ministers, to declare sail
prounounoe to His people, being penitent, the absolu-
tion and remission of their sins."
Now bore we bay* it asserted, that the present*
of the Lord in His fleorament is owing to the bless-
ing of his priests We defy his Lordship to produce
one atingle passage from tb• formularies of that
Church of which he is an offlosr, in which this
monitions proposition is maintained.
We have it smarted, that the sucomeors of the
A poetics have the power to "make sinners partakers of
the mercies of God :" we defy hisLordahip support
, this blasphemous usurpation of the prerogative of
God by any passage from the Church'. formularies.
The work of the priesthood is described as "bring
j an instrument of the Holy Ghost in incorporating
! mankind into the humanity of the Word mad*
flesh :" this la simple nonsense.
We have it asserted that the Sacrament becomes
I a channel of gram through the blessing of the priest,
that the priests are Intercessor, and Mediators,
which assertion ie directly opposed to the Prayer
Book and Bible.

But his Lordship quotas the Prayer Book and
boldly asserts that because the minister ham power
to declare and pronoun.** to his people the absolution
and rernissi, a of *dr Mos, thitefore hakes pollee t
minister that pardon. How does he pronounce "
pardonith and aboolveth anthem that its penittntf
and on, if we go to • prisoner in gaol and tell him
that Her Majesty is willing to pardon all that are
penitent, and advise him to repent and oak for
pardon, the Governor of the gaol ought to let him
go free at once—we have ministered pardon to him.
What is perversion, if au& a misquotation is not
But look at this :

"Moreover, in speaking of the second part, namely
the rca sikerantenti, the Church says that the Body and
Blood of Christ are 'verily and indeed taken and
received' thus using words of well-known value to
theologians, and the force of which is well explained to
us by Meylin, when he says, 'Verily and indeed, Isiah
the English book vere et re ipsii„ or vete et realiter, maith
the Latin translation, by which the Church cloth teach
us to understand that Christ is truly and really present,
though after a spiritual manner, in the blessed
Sacrament."

And what shall we say to the wilful omission of the'
words which our Church uses after the passage pre-
tended to be quoted, which explain the whole
passage, namely, "by the faithful in the Lard's
per." To omit them words, and oaks the garbled
extract mean what is directly opposite, may snit an
unscrupulous theologian like Boutin, but it will not
add to the reputation of the Bishop of Salisbury. It
is melees to talk about honesty being dear to every
Englishman to a strain of bombaatia self-laudation,
while such glaring nits of tampering with the Prayer
Book gives men reason to fear that soolanastical
honesty is one thing, and English honesty another.
Why did not his lordship quote the Catechism •
little morn It tells us that the Sacrament was or. !
dained, not as • 'amigos, not as the Priest's pleading
on earth what Christ pleads in heaven, but simply
"For the continual remembrance, of the sacrifice of
the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we
roost vs thereby:" and thereby answers at once and
negatives the whole of the Bishop's arguments.
But let us mins tient Ist his lordship's solsolarship.
He says,

" Bat our Lord's words hold more than this. The
words are most remarkable on. The original words,
of which "Do this' is the translation, mean in
Atesandrioe Greek "sacrifiee this," and Um other word
&swami it also • sacrificial word, and signifies the
offering el strmskiner.
Now for the benefit of our lees learned readers, we
my at once, whet every man with the least preten-
lion to soboluship knows, that this is ample and
unmitigated nonsense. Can his lordship modem a
single purge in any Greek, ancient or modern,
except the peculiar idiom of that language apparently
used at Salisbury, where the Greek word translated
"do" means sacrifice, with the thing offered for Its
grammatical object, as the word "this," in one
trasslaties is the object of the verb " do," or to make
It more plain—ain be producer s peerage in Mei-
andrine Greek, where we are mid, or -directed, to
"Do a lamb, or do • goat, or do a heifer isi any
God," in the same way that will, directed ho' Do
this in remembraves of our Lord?" If he cannot,
then we my that this hit ci gratuitous learning is an
WWI to his clergy, an attempt to mystify the laity,
and utterly unworthy the position of • Bishop. We
recioamised his lordship to leek laic Soblemner's
Letioon, it will save him from snob painful ezbikii-
Sem far the farm Or perhaps be will try and
interpret the Centurion's word' to his Derma (Enke
vb., 8), or our Lord'e words to the lawyer (Luke
z., 28), in the same remarkable "Do this"
ere the words in mob cm.: how " 8110rifiell
this" reed ?

With regard to Um rep/ end judicial powers of the
Priesthood, especially as exercised in Absolution,
his lordship is mole than usually Amory ; but
enough ia mid to make it clear that be and his pious
and limped fried Dr. Fuser are at one ou
subject of Coofession and Absolution, although the
indigoatioa that km been shown ma that subject may
oak, it ocommieot for the pressat to keep it Shrouded
I. mystery ; whilst his approbation of Ritualise,is
avowed, and his sympathy with objectors is on* of
patronising oontacopt.
Aid what is the result of this exhibition ? What
tbe effect of this obarge ls say Gee satiseed Is
the Chan* advsoood ? Is the Diocese al rest
Ii any coe's doubt removed
On, opium' costal& *Maw of tiro fruits it is
likely r boar. Al Bridpork is. olorgrom
Illognmer. Nod milk as boom*, Ur*
lio obootriloomme of many of hie more readout