The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-04 00:00:00

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS.

The arguments in the case of the Office of the
Judge Promoted by the Rev. J. Fendall v. the Rev.
H. B. Wilson, upon the admission of the articles of
the indictment, were resumed yesterday morning,
in the Arches Court, before Dr. Lushington.

Dr. Lushington having asked the counsel for the
prosecution why in their opinion, if criticism might
be applied to one passage of the Bible, should it not
be applied to the whole ; where was the line to be
drawn ; and if one miracle might be construed alle-
gorically why might not all the miracles be so con-
strued,

Dr. Phillimore replied that there was a clear
difference between legitimate liberty of opinion
which the Church had always allowed, and that
which was claimed under the term ideology. To
question the verbal accuracy of a particular passage
might be no offence, but to interpret as allegorical
all the most prominent events recorded in the
Scriptures was certainly beyond the liberty which
the Church of England allowed to her clergy. With
regard to the other point, the Church had not sanc-
tioned at all the use of ideology in the interpretation
of miracles. Indiviitial divines, in the supposed
difficulty of comprehending a particular miracle,
had treated it as allegorical ; but no eminent divine
in the Church had ever claimed the right to place
an ideological construction upon all miracles when
the plain and literal meaning served for their com-
prehension. The prosecution objected to Mr. Wil-
son that he claimed for every clerk the liberty of
construing any miracle as each might please—a
claim which struck at the root of miracles as evi-
dence of a divine revelation.

Dr. Lushington—What you say, then, comes to
this, that the court must find the line of demarca-
tion for itself. You say that there is a line, but the
decision of the court must depend upon all the cir-
cumstances of the case.

Dr. Phillimore—That is so. I cannot carry the
definition further.

Dr. Deane, on behalf of the defendant, then pro-
ceeded to reply to the arguments anvaneed by Dr.
Phillimore and Dr. Swabey in support of the arti-
cles. He observed, in the first place, that his learned
friends had completely misunderstood what was
meant by ideology as used in the essay. Dr. Philli-
more had said that the essay contained the expres-
sion of a wish on the part of the writer that he and
all others should be free from all fetters in the in-
terpretation of the Scriptures. In order to sustain
the indictment against Mr. Wilson it must be shown
that each of the separate charges was one upon
which a conviction would lie ; it was not open to
the prosecution to contend that there were particu-
lar passages which, though not containing sepa-
rately sufficient upon which to found a conviction,
yet the court ought to convict, because, taken col-
lectively, they showad the animus of the writer.
There was ample authority in the Church, in the
writings of her most eminent divines, against any
notion of the inspiration of every word and line of
the canonical Scriptures, and in all fundamentals
and essentials inspiration was admitted by Mr.
Wilson to exist. With regard to the question of
the subscription of the Thirty-nine Articles, he was
willing to admit that if there had been found in the
defendant's writings any evasion of the great doc-
trine of Christianity, it was possible that Mr. Wil-
son might be brought within the terms of the in-
dictment. But so far from this being the case, the
essayist had distinctly inculcated the doctrine of
the incarnation in the words " so again the incar-
nification of the Divine Emmanuel remains ;" and
he had inculcated the doctrine of the resurrection
at page 162, where he said that the doctrine of the
resurrection was a doctrine taught by the Saviour.
The claim of the prosecution upon this matter of
subscrip was that the articles were to be
subscribed in the plain literal meaning of
the words and sentences, It would be
remembered that in the Gorham case the plain
literal meaning of the articles was in question, and
two great courts of judicature differed in opinion
upon it; so that even as to the literal meaning of
the articles there was a difficulty of construction
which must leave some liberty of opinion to the
clergy. In practice, the Act of Uniformity bound
the clergy, but in matters not of fact, and which
were not fundamental or essential principles, how
could they obtain that universal agreement of opi•
nion which they must establish, or the case for the
prosecution tailed ? What the prosecution con-
tended was that clergymen must agree in matters
of opinion or quit the Church. Was it essential to
man's salvation that he should believe in angelic
appearances, or in the literal truth of the story of
Saul and the Witch of Endor ? The Church of
Rome had fixed the meaning which it attached to
certain doctrines, and had fallen into the error of
transubstantiation; and to avoid such dangers the
Church of England had in these matters wisely left
the door open. He was surprised that this prose-
cution was ever entered upon, because it seemed to
him that if the proceedings against the writers of
the volume of "Essays and Reviews" were wise at
all, it would have been well to have stopped for the
result of the first case before opening a second.
There were seven essays, and they were all said to
be very bad. One of the essayists was dead and
another was a layman ; but there were still three
other cases in which proceedings must be taken, or
the prosecutors must say, " The whole book is bad
—but we think the essays of Dr. Williams and Mr.
Wilson are the two, worst." In that case it would
be said that the bishops and 9,000 of the clergy had
condemned the book throughout, but had only the
courage to venture against these two, and that they
were mistaken, therefore, in their original opinion
that all of the essays contained erroneous doctrines.
It would seem, however, if all that was said were
true, that there were greater errors and dangers in
others of the articles. He greatly regretted that
these prosecutions had been undertaken at all ; but
whatever might be the ultimate decision, he was
quite certain that the articles of indictment must
be reformed before t he court could admit any of them.
Dr. Lushington—l shall not give judgment in the
case of Dr. Williams or in this until the case of
" Burder v. Heath" has been heard and decided
upon by the Privy Council. They are the same in.
genus though very different in species, and it is my
hope and expectation that something may fall from
their lordships on that occasion that may tend to
throw some light upon the course which it will be
my duty to pursue in conformity with their decision.
But I hope very soon after that judgment has been
delivered to be able to pronounce my opinion iJ both
of these cases.
Dr. Phillimore—The 26th of March is fixed for
the hearing of " grader 'v. 'Heath " by the' Privy
Council.