The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-18 00:00:00

DR. PUSEY AND DR. COLENSO.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE "TIMES."
Colenso's letter, which he has addressed
to me only in your columns, is in truth intended much
more for your readers than for me, you will allow me, I
am sure, to answer it to them.

Dr. Colenso. in it invites me to prosecute him, as I (upon
what seemed to me adequate occasion) invited Mr. Go-
lightly and others, who had written or spoken against me.
I did so, having good grounds to believe (as I do) that
there is an University Court in which I might be sued,
with provision for an appeal, which I proposed to facili-
tate, to the higher law courts.

Dr. Colenso knows, as well as I do, that, holding no
preferment in England, he is amenable to no jurisdiction
in England ; that there is no English court in which I could
cite him.

Further, Dr. Colenso probably knows that those who
hold the same principles as I do hold that the only tribunal
before which he could be lawfully cited is that before
which he was cited, before which his cause was patiently
and carefully heard, before which he was defended as far
as he himself chose, every step in the proceedings of which
court was taken under very high legal advice—that of the
Metropolitan of Capetown, with others his suffragan
bishops. He knows probably that we believe that judg-
ment to have been just. To invite me, then, to prosecute
him afresh, as if his cause had not been heard, is to ask
me to ignore a judgment which, on my own principles,
I am bound to acknowledge, and thereby to offer an insult
to the Bishop of Capetown and the other bishops who sat
as his assessors, or have since concurred in his judgment.
Dr. Colenso further invites me to "move the Archbishop
of Canterbury" to obtain such a tribunal. Now, apart
from the facts that his Grace needs no advice of mine, and
that it would be mere impertinence in me to offer any
advice upon a subject on which he must long since have
maturely thought and determined, it is again asking me
to ignore a judgment and a tribunal which, on sound
ecclesiastical principles, is the only one which I can
acknowledge, and to pray his Grace to form, or have
formed, an unecclesiastical tribunal, which should finally
land the cause for re-decision in the Judicial Committee
of the Privy Council—a court which, it is well known,
I, in common with others, hold to be in the last degree
unsatisfactory.

Dr. Colenso further draws attention to the fact that,
although Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, I have not made
any public attempt to answer his book upon the Penta-
teuch. Dr. Colenso looks upon his book with a parent's eye.
I would have answered his book had I formed the same
estimate of it. I did go carefully through the first part
of it with those members of the University who liked to
be present at the discussion, but I had often to apologise
to them for occupying them with such objections. I
thought it more useful to answer the pseudo-criticisms on
the Book of Daniel (because, as I said, the rationalists
held them to be their greatest achievement), and to leave
the refutation of Dr. Colenso's book to others.
In regard to what was called " The Speaker's Commen-
tary," I am glad that it was not published with the ra-
pidity which was originally contemplated. For with
such rapidity no solid work could have been accomplished.
In regard to that which I myself projected, death has de-
prived me of some most -valued contributors. The
" Essays and Reviews " occasioned me rather to lay the
foundation of a commentary on the Book of Daniel than
to write one. Other troubles in the Church have pre-
vented me hitherto from completing the portion which I
had assigned to myself. But, if God continue my life, I
hope to resume my work.
Dr. Colenso asks, " Are we to conclude from this "
(the delay as to " The Speaker's Commentary "), " that
it has been found hopeless to endeavour to maintain the
old traditions in the face of all educated Europe?" Nothing
less. Forty-two years have now elapsed since I became
acquainted with rationalist criticism. lam acquainted
with every notable book which has been written on the
Old Testament ; and my conviction is that every solid ad-
dition to our knowledge tends to the maintenance of the
old truths, and that "educated Europe," provided that
such of it as is not converted be converted to the true belief
as to Almighty God, will come to acknowledge those old
truths. I make this limitation because as long as any
part of "educated Europe" disbelieves in miracle or pro-
phecy upon apriori grounds, it would be delusive to think
that more scientific proof could uproot such prejudices,
or do the work of the Spirit of God.—Your obedient
servant,
Se ptember9 E. B. PUSEY.
.
Accidentally I only saw this morning Dr. Colenso's
letter addressed to me through your columns.

THE PARISIAN MIRACLES OF THE
ZOUAVE JACOB.

(From the Unita Cattolica.)
Frederick 11., King of Prussia, wrote to Voltaire :
—" Rely on it, if the Philosopher found a govern-
ment and establish a philosophical religion, before
half a century the people will fabricate new super-
stitions, and will offer worship to some object
which the senses do not see, or will make little
idols, or adore the tombs of their founders, or will
venerate the sun, or some absurdity of the kind will
be substituted for the pure and simple worship of
the Supreme Being." And it is this which is now
taking place in Paris. For does not M. Renan
flourish there, who, in the name of philosophy,
denies the divinity and the miracles of Jesus
Christ? lie declares it is not true what the Gospel
recounts, that the Son of God cured the paralytic
and the cripple, gave hearing to the deaf, sight to
the blind. Renan has revealed to the world the
falsity of these facts on the ground that miracles
are impossible. A few years after and those who
applauded this unbeliever are bowing down in this
same Paris before a soldier, and are giving to a
charlatan the faith, homage, and worship which
they refuse to the Saviour of the world. The
Zouave Jacob heals the paralyzed simply by a
look, and the admirers of Renan believe it and
blame those who deny it. Renan, himself, who
has written 462 pages against our Divine Lord, has
not printed a line to warn the people that the cures
of Jacob are impudent shams.

This unhappy people stands in need of faith,
has a thirst for the supernatural. The Revolution
of 1789 destroyed altars, churches, festivals, God.
And then ? And then the people were beguiled
into offering up sacrifices to the Goddess of Liberty,
to the Goddess of Reason. For Catholic festivals
were substituted festivals of regicide, of agriculture,
of the sovereignty of the people, and finally they
clamoured for the re-establishment of the worship
of fire.

impiety always calls forth superstition and
unbelief begets credulity. No men were ever so
superstitious as the atheists, nor so easily beguiled
as the incredulous. Of a hundred free-thinkers, at
least ninety believe in the evil eye, and hang up a
horse-shoe on the nail of the door. A
people
which has not faith in God is open to all kinds of
whims, religious, political, historical. It believes in
sorcery ; it believes in liberty in the midst of ty-
ranny ; it believes in the daily tales of the news-
papers ; it believes in tables that speak, in hats
that dictate words, and in turning chairs.
In the midst of the Rationalists and Free-
thinkers of Geneva a Protestant minister succeeded
in establishing the religion of the Table. All
stood reverently listening to and worshipping the
Table that spoke. We have before our eyes several
volumes printed in Geneva in the years 1855 and
1856. One is entitled " Divine and Mysterious
Revelations, delivered by the Agency of a Table,"
and three others, " Rome, Geneva, and the Church
of Christ," works communicated by the agency of
a Table of the Son of God. Thus those who
denied the real presence of our Lord Jesus Christ
in the Holy Eucharist ended in proclaiming the
real presence of Jesus Christ beneath a piece of
wood.

And at this moment in Paris some unhappy
men who, with Renan, refused to recognize the
divinity and the miracles of the Redeemer of the
world, affirm, proclaim, and celebrate to-day the
miraculous healings of the Zouave Jacob, who, by
a mere look, heals the paralytic and makes the
blind to see. Ancient society, dissevered from the
true God, offered sacrifices to bulls and goats, and
modern society worships fluids, and ethers, and
gases. Disdaining to give its assent to the most
august mysteries, it bows down before the most
humiliating.
In 1858, Napoleon 111. ordered to be published
in his /3ulletin des Lois an imperial decree of
21st February, by which the Apostolic Letters,
dated 18th of December, 1854, of his Holiness Pope
Pius LX. relative to the dogmatic definition of
the Immaculate Conception were allowed to enter
the kingdom of France. These Apostolic Letters
were received by. Napoleon "without the approba-
tion of the clauses, formulas, and expressions which
they contained, and which are, or which might be,
contrary to the Constitution and laws of the Em-
pire, or to the franchises, liberties, and maxims
of the Gallican Church." But he who was so
reluctant and timorous in accepting a dogmatic
Bull, now gives full liberty to the Zouave Jacob,
in order that he may perform his miracles; and
`dispenses him froDa military service) so that he

may remain in Paris and watch over and heal the
cripple and the paralytic. It seems that Bona-
parte cares little about the corruption of his people ;
on the other hand he is much concerned that they
should not believe in the Syllabus.
We have good reason to suspect that the Zouave
Jacob at Paris desires to carry on the impious
work of Renan, who, in the fourteenth chapter
of his wretched book, denying in general the pos-
sibility of miracles, ascribes the cures of Jesus
to the beneficent influence of his eye. " The
presence of a man of a superior nature," writes
Renan, " who treats a sick man with kindness,
and who gives him, by some visible sign, the assur-
ance of his recovery, is, in many cases, a certain
emedy."

This explanation of Renan's is enough to make
any man of common sense laugh ; and, indeed,
can anything be more ridiculous than to attribute
the instantaneous cure of blind, and deaf, all
paralytic men, to the assurance given by a man
of superior nature " to the blind man that he sees,
to the deaf man that he hears, and to the paralytic
that he can walk ? The " man of superior nature
who worked such miracles is certainly a God. To
avoid this necessaryconsequence, the Zouave Jacob
has appeared in Paris, who cures with a look ; and
if credit can be gained for these extraordinary:
cures, these cures will serve as an explanation of
those of the Gospel ; but if the imposture is de-
tected, it is hoped, in such case, to destroy faith in
the true miracles as well as in the false.

And, first of all, though many speak of the cures
of the Zouave, as yet no paralytic man has come
forward to bear testimony in favour of Jacob to
those who regard him as an impostor. No man
blind from his birth has presented himself at the
office of the Courier Francais, saying, Behold, Dee!
In the second place the false miracles, far from
damaging the true, confirm them. Whence comes
it, asks M. Nicolas, that false money is coined ?
Because it is hoped to pass it off as true ; and
whence comes it that men hope and succeed in
passing it off, but because of the existence of the
true which predisposes men to receive whatever
resembles it. The false would not exist were
it
not that the true gave it importance and credit.
Trace all the falsehoods which have obtained
currency in the world, and it will be found that
they owe their fortune to some primitive truth of
which they were the external imitation. Adm.it
.
that there have been true miracles, and reason will,
easily prove that there must have been false ;
starting from false miracles, and tracing the source
of their credit, it will be found that true miracles
must have existed. In such a manner false miracles
not only prove nothing against the true, but, on the
contrary, prove much in their favour ; and, there-
fore, we add that the Zouave Jacob at Paris, with
his pretended cures, not only in nowise confirms
the absurdities of Renan, but rebuts them by de-
monstrating the impossibility that Jesus Chrlt
s_i
could have attained such repute as to have reach
to our days through so many centuries, had lie
worked miracles, and been what lie announce
u
Himself, the Son of God.