on the ’Study of the Evidences of Christianity.’
It was mainly a discussion of the miracle. It
was radical and conclusive. The essay closes
with an allusion to Darwin’s Origin of Species,
which had then just appeared. Baden Powell died
shortly after its publication. The fight came
on Rowland Williams’s paper upon Bunson’s
Biblical Researches. It was really upon
the prophecies and their use in ‘Christian Evidences.’
Baron Bunsen was not a great archaeologist, but he
brought to the attention of English readers that which
was being done in Germany in this field. Williams
used the archaeological material to rectify the current
theological notions concerning ancient history.
A certain type of English mind has always shown zeal
for the interpretation of prophecy. Williams’s
thesis, briefly put, was this: the Bible does
not always give the history of the past with accuracy;
it does not give the history of the future at all;
prophecy means spiritual teaching, not secular prognostication.
A reader of our day may naturally feel that Wilson,
with his paper on the ‘National Church,’
made the greatest contribution. He built indeed
upon Coleridge, but he had a larger horizon.
He knew the arguments of the great Frenchmen of his
day and of their English imitators who, in Benn’s
phrase, narrowed and perverted the ideal of a world-wide
humanity into that of a Church founded on dogmas and
administered by clericals. Wilson argued that
in Jesus’ teaching the basis of the religious
community is ethical. The Church is but the instrument
for carrying out the will of God as manifest in the
moral law. The realisation of the will of God
must extend beyond the limits of the Church’s
activity, however widely these are drawn. There
arose a violent agitation. Williams and Wilson
were prosecuted. The case was tried in the Court
of Arches. Williams was defended by no less a
person than Fitzjames Stephen. The two divines
were sentenced to a year’s suspension. This
decision was reversed by the Lord Chancellor.
Fitzjames Stephen had argued that if the men most
interested in the church, namely, its clergy, are the
only men who may be punished for serious discussion
of the facts and truths of religion, then respect
on the part of the world for the Church is at an end.
By this discussion the English clergy, even if Anglo-Catholic,
are in a very different position from the Roman priests,
over whom encyclicals, even if not executed, are always
suspended.
Similar was the issue in the case of Colenso, Bishop of Natal. Equipped mainly with Cambridge mathematics added to purest self-devotion, he had been sent out as a missionary bishop. In the process of the translation of the Pentateuch for his Zulus, he had come to reflect upon the problem which the Old Testament presents. In a manner which is altogether marvellous he worked out critical conclusions parallel to those of Old Testament scholars on the Continent. He was never really an expert, but in his main contention