The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-08
THE GCUMENICAL COUNCIL AND THE
AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE


THE GCUMENICAL COUNCIL AND THE
AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE
BIBLE.
From, the Pail Mall Gazette.
The correspondence in the columns of the
Times on the subject of the authorized YER
sion of the Bible comes just in time to show
that Protestants fall equally short with Roman
Catholics of honestly admitting that reli-
gions, if they are to be believed,
ought to be true. Lord Shaftes-
bury holds that certain doctrines are
absolutely necessary to eternal salvation, and
he also holds that these doctrines are set
forth in a series of books which form the
Bible, just as those books came from their
original writer's. But he declines to put his
two articles of faith together, and for fear
that the essential doctrines may not be found
to be stated in the original documentary
record as clearly as he would like, he does
not wish the world at large to be told with
any authority what conclusions COM
petent persons who have examined
the record have formed concerning it's mean.
ing. He has satisfied himself that his creed
is contained in a representation of the origi-
nal documents popularity known as the autho-
rized version, and therefore he desires that
uninstructed persons should remain under an
impression, known to be in a great degree
false, that the authorized version is literally
correct. This course of thought has the very
strongest resemblance to the train of ideas
which has led the Ultramontane school of
Roman Catholics to desire that the Pope
should be authoritatively proclaimed infali-
ble number of pious opinions have grown
up inside the Church which number of per-
SONS not accused of dishonesty or disloyalty
nevertheless do not at present believe to be
sustained by the sources of authority to which
the Church appeals. Certain other opin-
ions have grown up outside the Church,
which the Ultramontanes believe to be
wicked and mischievous to their ecclesiasti-
cal system, but which are nevertheless held
by q number of Roman Catholics who cannot
at present be authoritatively blamed. They
therefore wish that the first class of opinions
shall be made true and tho second class of
opinions shall be made false; and in order to
have this operation of making truth per-
formed, they propose to declare the Pope,
who they think will speak they wish,
divinely incapable of committing a mistake.
The Pope is to be held to be infallible
for purpose independent of actual truth,
just as for purpose, also independent
of actual truth, the authorized version is to be
held to be absolutely without error. 1t would
not be difficult to show that the resemblance
is not confined to the object desired, or to the
lines of argument pursued. There is n Gu
rious similarity in tho language about ''our
glorious English Bible" to the defamation of
the Ultramontanes about giving a visible ex-
preston to Catholic unity. Here, however.
the Roman Catholics have much the best of
it. If rhetoric and metaphor are wanted to
disguise the weakness of q priOri reasoning,
much more of them are at command of those
who would defy man than of those who
would defy book.
We wish we could say that all of those
who contend against Lord Shaftesbury upor
what we consider to be the just and homes
side were wholly free from the imputatiol
peatedly made by them that a corrected yer
sion of the Bible will affect no doctrin
commonly held by orthodox Christians strike
us as, at all events, rashly made and as il
the strict sense incorrect. SO long, indeed
as the mode of proving doctrine is b
the accumulation of texts disjointed fror