The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-12 00:00:00

Article 7 is as follows :—" And we further article and
object to you, thesaid Rev. Rowland Williams, that in the
said article, essay, or review are contained the following pas-
sages, that is to say : As in his Egypt our author sifts the
historical date of the Bible, so in his Gott ender Geschechte
he expounds its directly religious element. Lamenting,
like Pascal, the wretchedness of our feverish being when
estranged from its external stay, he traces, as a countryman
of Hegel, the divine thought bringing order out of confu-
sion. Unlike the despairing school who forbid us trust in
God or in conscience unless we kill our souls with literalism,
he finds salvation for men and states only in becoming ac-
quainted with the Author of our life, by whose reason the
world stands fast, whose stamp we bear in our forethought
and whose voice our conscience echoes in the Bible, as an
expression of devout reason, and therefore to be read with
reason or freedom, he finds record of the; spiritual grants
whose experience generated the religious atmosphere we
breathe.' At pages 82 and 83: 'lf we would esti-
mate the truth of such views, the full import of which
hardly lies on the surface, we find two lines of inquiry pre-
sent themselves as criteria, and each of these divides
itself into two branches. First, as regards the subject matter,
both spiritual affection and metaphysical reasoning forbid
us to confine revelations like those of Christ to the first half
century of our era, but show at least affinities of our faith
existing in men's minds anterior to Christianity, anctrenewed
with deep echo from loving hearts in many a generation.
Again, on the side of external criticism, we find the evidence
of our canonical books, and of the patriotic authors nearest
to them, are sufficient to prove illustration in outward act of
principles perpetually true, but not adequate to guarantee
narratives inherently incredible, or precepts evidently
wrong. Hence we are obliged to assume in ourselves a
verifying faculty not unlike the discretion which a mathe-
matician would use in weighing a treatise on geometry, or
the liberty which a musician would reserve in reporting a
law of harmony. Thus, as we are expressly told, we are
to have the witness in ourselves. It is not our part to dic-
tate to Almighty God that He ought to have spared us this
strain upon oar consciences ; nor, in giving us through His
Son a deeper revelation of His own presence, was He bound
to accompany His gift by a special form of record. Hence
there is no antecedent necessity that the least rational view
of the gospel should be the truest, or that our faith should
have no human element, and its records be exempt from his-
torical law. Rather we may argue the more divine the germ
the more human must be the development.' (Other passages
are quoted from pages 77 and 78, and it is contended that
these opinions are antagonistic to the 6th, 7th, and 20th of the
Articles of Religion—that portion of the Nicene Creed which
declared in substance that the Holy Ghost spake by the
prophets, and that portion of Scripture appointed in the
Book of Common Prayer to be read as the epistle for Christ-
mas-day (Hebrews 1).
Article 8 is of extreme length, and cites a large portion of
the essay having reference to the moral and predictive ele-
ments of prophecy. "We article and object to you," it pro-
ceeds to say, " that in the passages hereinbefore recited,
being portions of the said article, essay, or review, you did
advisedly maintain or affirm that in the Books of the Old
Testament there is, with the possible exception of one, two,
or three doubtful passages, no element of divinely inspired
prediction or prognostication of future persons or events,
or that you did therein advisedly maintain or affirm such a
doctrine, position, or opinion, and that the same is contrary
to and inconsistent with the 6th and 7th of the articles of
religion and that portion of the Nisene evecia which declares
in substance that the Holy Ghost spake by the prophets
and contrary to and inconsistent with the teaching of the
said church as contained in that portion of the Holy Scrip-
ture appointed in the Book of Common Prayer to be read as
the Gospel for the Monday in Easter week (St. Luke
xxix.-13)."
Article 9 sets out certain passages contained on pages 76
and 77, and proceeds —" IN e article and object to you,
that in the passages hereinafter recited you did advi-
sedly maintain and affirm that the prophet Jonah was
not a real historical person, and that the canonical book
written by him and incorporated in the Old Testament was
not really written by him, and has not any authority bind-
ing upon the church, and that the book of Daniel was not
the work of the prophet Daniel but of some other person,
and is not an authority binding on the church, or that you
did therein advisedly maintain or affirm a doctrine, position,
or opinion, contrary to or inconsistent with the 6th of the
articles of religion, and contrary to or inconsistent with the
teaching of the church as contained in the form and manner
of making deacons, in the following question and answer, to
wit—The Bishop—Do you confessedly believe all the Ca-
nonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament? Answer
—I do believe them.
Article 10 charges Dr.. Williams with maintaining that
the portion of Holy Scripture usually called the Revelation
of St. John the Divine, the Epistle usually called the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Epistle usually called the
Epistle of St. Peter, are not respectively parts of Holy
Scripture, whose authority is binding on the Church.
Article 11 charges him with affirming that the statements
of Holy Scripture as to historical facts may be read and un-
derstood in a wholly figurative and non-natural sense, being
inconsistent with the teaching of the Church as contained
in that portion of Holy Scripture appointed by the Book of
Common Prayer as the proper lesson for the evening service
for the first Sunday in Lent, 22d chapter of Genesis ; and
to the second proper lesson for the morning service on All
Saints-day, from verse 33 of the 11th chapter of Hebrews to
the 7th verse of the 12th chapter.
Article 12 charges Dr. Williams with affirming that
Christ did not suffer, nor was crucified, dead, and buried
to reconcile His Father to us, nor to be a sacrifice for the
orginal guilt as well as for the actual sins of men; that the
offering of Christ is not the perfect redemption, propitia-
tion, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, both
original arid actual, and that such doctrine is contrary to
and inconsistent with the 2d and 31st of the articles of reli-
gion, and with the teaching of the Church, as contained in
the prayer of consecration in the order of administration of
the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion.
Article 13. sets out the following passage as affirming
that the element of water is not a divinely ordained means
whereby we receive spiritual grace in the sacrament of bap-
tism, and as denying the doctrine of original sin. "The
first Christians held that the heart was purified by faith ;
the accompanying symbol, water, became by degrees the
instrument of purification. Holy baptism was at first pre-
ceded by a vow, in which the young soldier expressed his
consciousness of spiritual truth, but when it became twisted
into a false analogy with circumcision, 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 charges Dr. Williams with affirming that the
incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ was purely spiritual,
and that the Son of God did not take man's nature in the
womb of the blessed Virgin, contrary to and inconsistent
with the second of the articles of religion.
Article 1.5 charges him with affirming that justification
by faith means only the peace of mind or sense of divine
approval which comes of trust in a righteous God, and that
justification is a verdict of forgiveness upon our repentance,
and of acceptance upon the offering of our hearts, contrary
to the 11th article of religion.
Article 16 identifies Dr. Williams with the views of Bun-
sen, upon whose works he commented.
Article 17 is as follows—" And we further article and
object to you, the said Rev. Rowland Williams, that the
manifest tendency, scope, object, and design of tho whole
essay, is to inculcate a disbelief in the divine inspiration
and authority of the Holy Scriptures contained in
the Old and Now Testament,ao reduce the said Holy Scrip-
tures to a level of a mere human composition, such as the
writings of Luther and of Milton ; to deny that the Old
Testament contains prophecies or predictions of Our Sa-
viour and other persons and events ; to deny that the pro-
phets 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 por-
tions of the Old Testament and the truth and genuineness
of certain parts of the New Testament, and the truth and
reality of the miracles recorded as facts in the Old and New
Testament; to deny or interpret by a meaning at variance
with that of the church the doctrines of original sin, of in-
fant baptism, of justification by faith, atonement and pro -
pritiation by the death of Our Saviour, and of the incarna-
tion of Our Saviour."
The remaining articles, five in number, are of the usual
formal and technical charaater.

TIIE CAVALRY.—A general order has been issued
(says the United Service Gazette) to the effect that the
shabraque, in future, is only to be worn on the occasion of
reviews, and when in complete marching order, for route
marching.