The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-10 00:00:00

TILE OFFICE OF TILE JUDGE PROMOTED BY THE BISHOP

OF SALISBURY V. DR. ROWLAND WILLIAMS.

This morning the Court of Arches again sat at West-
minster for the purpose of proceeding with this case, and
there were more persons present than there have recently
been, inasmuch as it was generally known that the Bishop
of Salisbury's case in support of the admissions filed by his
lordship against Dr. Rowland Williams was to be stated.
Dr. Robert Phillimore, Q.C., Chancellor of Salisbury,
appeared for the bishop, with Mr. Coleridge, Q.C., and Dr.
Swabey.
Dr. Phillimore, in contending that the Court should
admit the articles, said that the Bishop of Salisbury had
entered upon the prosecution with great regret, and
simply because he felt it his duty to do so, arising out of
the high and responsible office in the Church to which he
had been called. Dr. Williams was a beneficed clergyman
in the diocese of Salisbury, and the bishop was of opinion
that in the article complained of, namely, " Bunsen's Bibli-
cal Researches," the rev. gentleman had advisedly main-
tained and affirmed certain erroneous, strange, and heretical
doctrines, positions, and opinions, contrary and repugnant
to the doctrine and teaching of the United Church of Eng-
land and Ireland, as by law established, and thereby con-
travening the statutes, constitutions, and canons ecclesias-
tical of the realm, and against the peace and unity of the
Church. That there might be no needless difficulty in deal-
ing with the matter, the passages of the essay upon which
the bishop founded his charges against Dr. Williams were
distinctly set out in the articles which had been filed . In
the 7th article, passages were quoted, and it was charged
against the defendant that he maintained that the bible or
Holy Scripture was an expression of devout reason, and
the written voice of the congregation, not the Word of
God, nor containing any revelation of His truth or of His
dealings with mankind, nor the rule of our faith; that he
maintained doctrines and opinions contrary to, or incon-
sistent with, the Sixth, Seventh, and Twentieth Articles of
Religion, to that part of the Nicene Creed which declares
in substance that the Holy Ghost spake by the Prophets,
and contrary te, and inconsistent with, the teaching of the
Church as contained in the Ist Chapter of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, appointed in the Book of Common Prayer
to be read as the Epistle for Christmas Day ; to the
Epistle to be read for the Epiphany (3d chapter of
the Epistle to the Ephesians), and as contained in
the proper preface appointed in the Book of Common
Prayer upon Whit Sunday. In article 8 passages from
the Essay were distinctly set out, and it was charged
against the defendant that he had affirmed that in the
books of the Old Testament there was, with the possible
exception of one, two, or three doubtful passages, no
element of Divinely-inspired prediction or prognostication
of future persons or events, and that such doctrine was
contrary to the Sixth and Seventh Articles of Religion,
to the Nicene Creed, and to certain portions of the Scrip-
tures appointed to be read in the course of the Church
Service. Again, in another article the following passage
was set out as utterly at variance with the Twenty-
seventh Article of Religion :—" The first Christians
held that the heart was purified by faith ;
the accompanying symbol (water) became by de-
grees the instrument of purification. Holy baptism
was at first preceded by a vow, in which the young
soldier expressed his consciousness of spiritual truth, but
when it became twisted into a false analogy with circum-
cision, the rite degenerated into a magical form, and the
Augustinian notion of a curse inherited by infants was
developed in connection with it. Article 14 had the follow-
ing passage :—" Thus the incarnation becomes with our
author as purely spiritual as it was with St. Paul ; the son
of David by birth is the son of God by the spirit of holi-
ness." It was charged against Dr. Williams that he
affirmed that the incarnation of the Lord was purely spiri-
tual, contrary to the second article of religion. The learned
doctor proceeded at great length to cite other passages from
the Essay, particularly those relating to the prophecies of
the Old Testament and some portions of the New, comparing
them with the Articles of Religion and the Formularies of
the Church, with which they were in antagonism, con-
tending that they clearly bore out what was stated in the
17th article, namely, " That the manifest tendency, scope,
object, and design of the whole essay is to inculcate a dis-
belief in the Divine inspiration and authority of the Holy
Scriptures, contained in the Old and New Testament; to
reduce the Holy Scriptures to the level of a mere human
composition, such as the writings of Luther and Miltoni; to
deny that the Old Testament contains prophecies or predic-
tions of our Saviour and other persons and events; to
deny that the Prophets, speaking under the special
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, foretold human events; to
deny altogether or greatly discredit the truth and
genuineness of the historical portions of the Old