Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-01-08

does, 70 the Apocrypha, there Is really no
parellelism whatever. For the Palestinian
Jews never consented to receive it, and
therefore common consent was never OBJ
tanned, whereas the whole Christian church
has consented to receive James, Second
Peter, Second and Third John, Jude, He
brsws and the Apocrypha. These books
moreover, were not written in post day or
after the order of prophets ceased, as were
the ecclesiastical books of the Jews, but in
the very time when the gift of
inspiration was abundantly vouch-
safed. For every one of these books
with the exception of II Peter, was found
as early as ITO, either in the Peskito or old
Stala, andIif found in versions at this date,
they must have existed before in the very
earliest catalogues of the New Testament.
They were not, it is true, all found in
the Peshlto or all in the old Stala, for the
East gave witness to some and the West to
others, but because the witness of both
was true, they were all received by common
consent and bound together in one book,
which thenceforward become the fixed
canon of the church.
This concludes the review of the
bishops reply to the first specification
of my argument.
AS the bishop has failed to invalidate a
single position taken therein that my
premise is sustained, viz: That the coun
Gil of Trent erred in pronouncing Apoc-
rypha canonical. So far as regards my
second specification.
AS the bishop has admitted that ''the
vulgate may be revised, though in minor
matters of no essential importance" and
as he defends Cardinal Manning, who says
that authenticity in the Trentine sense is
only relative" it is quite unnecessary to
review his argument in regard to tine text
OF the Latin vulgate.
These admissions, though reduced to a
minimum by means of hedging phrases,
would necessarily change the direction of
my thesis.
If authentic as used by the council is too
strong a word and needs modification, then
my thesis, expressed syllogistically, would
take the following form:
An infallible council can not err. The
council of Trent erred in declaring
the vulgate authentic, therefore the
council Of Trent is not infallible.
If, however, the bishop chooses to defend
the authority of thelvulgate in the full and
obvious sense of the word, then the argu-
ment will take the form of my original
thesis.
A faithful church conserves the true text
of scripture. Rome has refused to con-
serve it in declaring by an irreformable
decree corrupt edition of scripture to be
authentic, therefore Rome is an unfaithful
church.
It will make no difference which way
Bishop Ireland veers his defense, it will
surely find trouble for there is Scylla and
a Charybdis on either hand. If he admits
too much he will endanger the dogma of
infallibility. If he defends too much
he will defy common sense
as we'll as Christian scholarship.
There is but one possible escape from
this dilemma. If he can prove not from
Roman afterthought, but from the Trentine
fathers themselves, that authentic was not
used in its strict sense, that it does not
mean conformity with the original but
only conformity consistent with 5000
mistakes, he may in this one particular
save his church from inconsistency, but
Will he from the same charge be able to
save himself! We have heard for some
time great deal of eloquent discourse
upon the Biblical chaos into which Protest
antism has been thrown by the late revis-
ion, although our revisors have never at
tempted more than Cardinal Manning adj
mits to be legitimate when he says that
''ths church has never yet declared any
tsxt to possess immunity from the errors of
traHslations and transcriptions, nor that
trsnseribers or trsnslators are exempt
fron the liability to err"
See Manning's Temporal Mission of the
Holy Ghost, page 167.
1 confess to great pleasure in finding
this clear and ringing sentence in the
works of Cardinal Manning. 1t proved to
me beyond peradventure that the bishop
coadjuter OF st. Paul was not in harmony
with the best scholarship of his church.
And it proved to me also that irreform-
able, infaIlible DEGREES may be and will be
manipulated in the interest of advancing
knowledge. May this hopeful work go on
till the dogma of infallibiltty, shall be as
harmless as any fgment of the inagina-
ton.