[British Critic, April 1839.]
Another volume of the “Library of the Fathers” is on the point of making its appearance, containing the Translation of St. Cyprian’s Treatises; the translator is the Rev. C. Thornton, of Margaret Chapel.
To Mr. Lancaster the Church is indebted for some of the most striking and original views which have appeared in this day. His “Alliance of Education and Civil Government,” and Bampton Lectures on the “Popular Evidence of Christianity,” entitle him to respect and gratitude. Having said thus much, we hope he will not take it ill if we express much regret at the present publication, which consists of a Sermon preached against Dr. Hampden, with a Postscript; and a Correspondence which has arisen out of it between him and several university authorities. We will not enter into the merits of the question between them and him, because we are not so much reviewers of deeds done in Oxford, as of books published. Such a publication should not have come from such a quarter.
Mr. Merivale has published four beautiful Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge (J. W. Parker), to show that the Established Church is well adapted to impregnate the nation with the “spirit” of Christian truth. It is impossible to read them without feeling interest and respect for the writer, and being profited by his remarks; at the same time there is much fear lest such views of the character of the Christian Church as he implies should lead to the substitution of a secular spirit and mere literary taste for faith and practice. Mr. Merivale perhaps is in so little danger of such a calamity himself, that he does not see its likelihood in the case of others.
Mr. Crosthwaite has performed the very important service of editing Archbishop Potter’s “Discourse of Church Government” (Tegg, where, however, Mr. Crosthwaite’s edition must be inquired for.) He has corrected the Scripture references, examined the notes, printed at length the authorities, and added remarks of his own; besides appending at the end of the volume, indexes of texts, of authors, and of the principal matters. We earnestly recommend all students in divinity to avail themselves of the assistance afforded them in this valuable and authoritative work.
We are very glad to be able to rectify a misapprehension of ours relative to Mr. Palmer’s views of Articles of faith in No. xlviii. of this work. We will give his own words as they occur in a supplement to his volumes which he has just published:—“I have not any where maintained,” he says, “that the whole Catholic Church does even at this day preach every where one and the same doctrine, except in very minute secondary points, or except as popular errors interfere with it.’—British Critic, p. 364. A reference to what I have above stated, p. 567, will show that I am not on principle bound to sustain this position; nor do I practically admit it, because, in my opinion, several of the errors and abuses of the Roman Church are of a very important nature, and very detrimental to Christian piety, though they be not, strictly speaking, contrary to the articles of faith.
“I know not what part of my work has led to the notion that I hold ‘that the faith of the Church admits of addition,’ and that ‘any doctrine which has once been generally received must be apostolic, or, in other words, that the majority cannot be wrong.’—British Critic, pp. 368, 369. I have expressly argued against the latter position (vol. ii. p. 136, &c.); as to the former, I have distinctly stated that the articles of our faith were but once revealed and admit of no addition (vol. i. p. 89). Perhaps it may be supposed that in admitting that, before the universal Church has decided some question of controversy different opinions may be held without heresy, while I hold that, after the judgment of the Church, there should be no more diversity, I may seem to admit the articles of faith to be capable of addition. This was not my intention; I only mean that in the heat of controversy, when different opinions are supported by men of learning, it may for a time be doubtful what the revealed truth is, and therefore persons may for a time not receive that truth, may even hold what is contrary to it; and yet, until the authority of the universal Church has decided the question, and left then without excuse, they may be free from the guilt of formal heresy. I only speak here of controversies which the Church had not decided in former ages; or in which the testimony of tradition as well as Scripture is disputed.”
Mr. Oakley has just published a volume of Sermons preached at Whitehall Chapel (Rivingtons), which makes us very grateful to the Bishop of London for having ended the delicate and difficult arrangements, of which the preacher-ships have been the subject, by such an appointment. In a brief notice of this nature, we cannot do more than direct the reader’s attention to the preface, in which the Internal Evidence for the divinity of the Church system is drawn out from the tendency of its doctrines to produce those graces which Scripture especially inculcates; in other words, he shows that to be Catholic is the way, and only way, to be evangelical.