Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

peut te comprendre quelle bouche peut te célébrer dignement! Non les cieux ne sont pas aussi élevés au dessus de la terre, que ta dilection est grande envers les fils des hommes. De ta plénitude nous avons reçu grâces sur grâces."

Comment se fait-il donc que tant d'Anglais accusent l'Eglise de Genève de dédaigner l'œuvre de la rédemption? Les uns ne se sont instruits des faits que dans les libelles de ses antagonistes, or tous sont exagerés, plusieurs inexacts, quelques uns calomnieux. Les autres en venant à Genève, n'ont vu que les ennemis de la vénérable compagnie et sont retournés en Angleterre, forts de documens recueillis sur les lieux et dont ils ont fait grand bruit. Quelques uns enfin ont prétendu juger par euxmêmes, et induits en erreur par leur ignorance de la langue Française, ont porté des jugemens absolument faux, l'auteur de est article pourrait en citer un exemple frappant.

Ce qui achève enfin d'expliquer cette étrange inculpation, c'est l'amour exclusif d'un grand nombre de personnes pour leurs systêms Théologiques.

Le clergé de Genève repousse l'imputation du péché d' Adam, comme ne se trouvant point enseignée dans l'Ecriture, comme contraire à l'esprit de l'Evangile, comme injurieuse aux attributs de l'Etre Suprême, à sa justice, à sa bonté, comme propre à propager l'incrédulité en faisant le Christianisme indigne de son auteur.

Psa. xiv. 1; Prov. xx. 9; Job iv. 16. Quand au nouveau Testament, il suffit de n'être pas absolument ignorant en critique, pour savoir qu'on a tordu le vrai sens des passages que l'on en cite, comme favorables à l'idée de l'imputation du péché d'Adam. St. Paul en disant aux Ephésiens ii. 3, qu'ils étaient naturellement des enfans de colère comme les autres, parle de la condamnation qui pesait sur le monde Payen, avant sa conversion au Christianisme, non point à cause du péché d'Adam, il n'en est pas fait mention, il en donne une autre cause; Lorsque nous vivions selon les inclinations de notre chair, nous abandonnant à ses volontés et à ses pensées: comme si l'Apôtre craignait qu'on n'abusât de sa sentence, il l'achève et explique la cause de ce courroux de Dieu contre les Ephésiens. Quant au .*de St. Paul, Roin. v. 12, la grammaire et le sens s'opposent à ce qu'on en fasse une preuve en faveur de l'imputation de la chûte d'Adam: p' HAUTES paprav, ne signifie pas en qui tous ont péché, mais parce que tous ont péché! Car en qui se rapporterait à mort ou à monde et non à homme, mot beaucoup plus éloigné dans la phrase, Wetstein nous enseigne avec les Lexicographes que ep' à le même sens que dor, c'est ainsi que l'ont rendu les anciennes versions Syriaque et Arabe, c'est ainsi que Calvin l'a entendu dans son commentaire sur l' Epitre aux Romains, autant que tous ont péché. C'est ainsi que le traduit la version Anglaise au même endroit, Rom. v. 12, for that all have sinned.

Les partisans de cette doctrine, afin de lui concilier des sectateurs, préten- Lors donc que les écrivains du N. dent que la nier c'est rendre la ré- Testament déclarent qu'il n'y a pas demption inutile et sans but. Voilà le un juste, non pas même un seul, Rom. motif sur lequel se fondent beaucoup in. 10; ils enseignent un fait, mais de personnes pour colorer cette accu-ils ne prétendent jamais que ce fait se sation, l'Eglise de Genève dédaigne l'oeuvre de la rédemption.

Ce n'est point ici le lieu de traiter au long ce sujet; il ne s'agit pas d'un cours de Théologie, mais quelques observations suffisent pour établir que le reproche et les conséquences que P'on en tire sont également gratuits. Nous sommes fondés à nier l'imputation du péché d'Adam. Lorsque dans Pancien Testament il est parlé de la dépravation des hommes, jamais le péché d'Adam, n'en est dit être la cause. Gen. vi. 5, 6, 11; viii. 21;

rattache à la chute du premier père des hommes. Or c'est un fait que nous reconnoissons tous les limites de l'homme, comme être intelligent et moral, l'état social, font assez comprendre comment l'homme est pécheur. Or le rédempteur est bien plus nécessaire pour racheter les hommes de crimes nombreux dont ils sont les auteurs, qu'il ne l'aurait été pour les racheter d'un crime que le premier homme seul aurait commis, et auquel

* Copy illegible. ED.

[ocr errors]

ils n'auraient eu aucune part volontaire. Ce ne sont pas des péchés imputés, ce sont des péchés commis qu'il s'agit de racheter.

Nous savons fort bien, Monsieur, et nous confessons avec sincérité, que nul homme ne peut s'avancer vers le tribunal suprême, appuyé sur sa propre justice, c'est pour ce la que nous exaltons la miséricorde du Christ et que nous déclarons avec l'Apôtre qu'il n'y a de salut par aucun autre, qu'il n'y a sous le ciel aucun autre nom qui ait été donné aux hommes par lequel ils puissent être sauvés.

J'aurais bien d'autres choses à vous dire sur la phrase répréhensible que le rédacteur a insérée sur les confessions de foi, mais je n'ai réellement pris la plume que pour ce qui me tenait le plus fortement au cœur, la rédemption; d'ailleurs on verra bientôt paraître un ouvrage sur les confessions de foi.

Le rédacteur termine son article par le vœu que Genève redevienne ce qu' elle était jadis. Je vous dis, Monsieur, avec confiance, on attaque Genève parce qu'elle est en avant de la plûpart des autres Eglises au xix siècle, comme elle l'était au xvi; le tems viendra où elle recevra autant d' éloges et de bénédictions pour sa conduite actuelle que depuis quelques années elle à reçu d' outrages.

I

by the Jansenists, I found the following note, which represents this as the most probable meaning of the expression:-" Selon le premier sens, la fin du Seigneur, veut dire la passion de J. C. Selon le second, la gloire dont le Seigneur a couronné la patience de Job." I find also in a French version, published at Paris in 1764, avec approbation et privilège du roi, a note, which adds, after stating the more common opinion, Quelques-uns entendent cette fin du Seigneur, de la passion de JÉSUS-CHRIST, et du grand exemple de patience qu'il nous y a donné."

[ocr errors]

Should any of your readers have met with this sense of the words elsewhere, they will probably mention it.

Erasmus, as I see in his translated paraphrase, refers the words, "Ye have known what end the Lord made," to Job, for he thus comments: "You have marked him also getting the victory through the Lord's help: by whose goodness, for every thing that was taken from him by the malice of Satan, he received again twice as much." Le Clerc and Doddridge express the same opinion, taking_no notice of the sense given by the Jansenists. N. L. T.

SIR,

Homerton, January 19, 1822. availing myself of

Past, et Prof, en Théologie. I sion to offer a reply to the gentle

Genève, Decembre, 1821.

SIR,

January 21, 1822. HEARD, many years ago, in conversation, a remark on those words in James v. 11, "Ye have seen the end of the Lord," which was quite new to me, and, till very lately, I never met with it in any version or commentary. One of the company, during an unfashionable conversation on the phraseology of the Scriptures, sug. gested that the Apostle, probably, did -not refer to Job and to the reward of his patience by a restoration to worldly prosperity, but to Jesus Christ and the circumstances of our Lord's death, when he exhibited so lively a sense of the miseries coming upon his nation, and so much compassion even for his murderers.

Looking lately into Le Nouveau Testament, printed at Mons, in 1710,

men who have honoured with their animadversions the book intitled "The Scripture Testimony to the Messiah,” I conceive it to be not necessary, nor desirable, to resume the general argument of that work. Having in it endeavoured to deduce the true sense of scripture on the subject under consideration, it seems to me to be my duty to leave my arguments and conclusions, together with whatever may be advanced in contradiction to them, to the judgment of thinking and candid men. Replications and rejoinders have, to my apprehension, served, in most cases of controversy, rather to obscure the original question, than to facilitate the forming of a correct and decisive opinion upon it. I propose, therefore, to restrict myself, as much as I can, to the acknowledgment of any errors into which I may have fallen, and the setting right of

any misapprehensions which may appear to have risen in the minds of others.

To your correspondent BENEVOLUS I feel myself deeply indebted, not only for the handsome manner in which he has been pleased to express himself towards me personally, but still more for the excellent and amiable spirit which his letter breathes. The matter of his censure is, that I have cast severe and inequitable reflections on Mr. Belsham, and have quoted with encomium an eminent deceased writer who has done the same. My reply will be comprized in two or three

brief observations.

1. From the circumstance of this acute and gentlemanly censor's having adduced only one passage out of thirteen hundred pages, on which to ground his charge of an uncharitable and injurious spirit, I am induced to hope, that he regards that passage as an exception to the general tenor of the book; and that he admits its spirit and language, upon the whole, to be candid and respectful. May I trust, also, that it will not be deemed unbecoming in me to cite some sentences which expressed the disposition and desire of my mind; though I cannot flatter myself with having always acted up to that desire?

"The effusions of unchristian feeling will be viewed hereafter with grief and regret: but the words of truth and soberness, spoken or written in love, will abide the trial of time, and will furnish pleasing recollections in eternity. It is my sincere wish and endeavour to apply these sentiments, at all times and in all respects, to myself: and if, in any instance, I have violated them, I would be the first to condemn myself; and I hope I may say that such violation is not only con trary to my principles, but repugnant to my habitual feelings and practice."Script. Test. II. 755.

"I abhor the availing myself of the odium theologicum, or in any other way practising upon the infirmities and evil passions of men. But I am conscious of my own frailties, and would not be very eager in the endeavour of self-justification. If, in any part of what I have written, there be any degree of unchristian asperity, any partial reasonings, any unjust representations, or any unhandsome language; I do sincerely disap

prove and regret such passages, and will thankfully accept reproof for them.”—P.

757.

2. Benevolus has marshalled a powerful array of passages from Lord Bacon, Bishops Hall and Hopkins, Charnock, Flavel, Claude, Saurin, and Watts, and Bishop Clayton; in which there is a deliberate and studied confusion of the properties belonging to the human nature of our Blessed Lord, with those of that Divine Nature

which, I conceive, the Scriptures attribute to him. These are adduced for the purpose of shewing that I have acted very unjustly in charging Mr. Belsham with misrepresenting and stigmatizing the orthodox doctrine, when he says that it teaches "the incarce ration of the Creator of the world in the body of a helpless, puling infant." Those citations are painful and offensive indeed, and some of them so to a very high degree and it is true, as Benevolus intimates, that he might have swelled his collection to a much larger bulk. He has also, in the honourable and candid manner which distinguishes his letter, pointed out my explicit disclaiming of such language, when found in orthodox writers, and the strong protest which I had thought it my duty to make against it. I beg permission to add, that, in the page which he has quoted, I expressly lamented that "Dr. Watts has repeatedly fallen into this fault in his Hymns, some of which wound a thinking and pious mind by language which one could not copy without pain."

Why then is Mr. Belsham so severely reflected upon, and accused of misrepresentation; when he has only said that which eminent orthodox writers have said, and some of them in phrases not very dissimilar?

I answer; that, in those writers and in others from whom like passages might be selected, the expressions under consideration are instances of studied paradox, laboured antithesis, and extravagant hyperbole; but that, in the passage of the Calm Inquiry, the language is manifestly that of SCORN and CONTEMPT. Upon this great difference in the two cases I ground my defence; and I cannot but think that strong reprehension was

66

called for, with regard to the latter case. But was it equitably called a misrepresentation"? I continue to think that it was; because, in a professedly calm and dispassionate investigation, it is not fair to take our representations of a sentiment from the extravagant amplifications and exaggerations of rhetorical authors, whose taste led them, in other instances as well as in this, to sacrifice the strict accuracy of truth in order to produce a striking effect. Yet I do not fully approve of the language which I used; and, if the passage could be written again, I would try to find some milder terms of disapprobation. I likewise think it to be hazarding no improbable assertion, to say that, if my venerated friend, Dr. Edward Williams, were now alive, he would readily have joined in this declaration.

If now, Sir, I may hope that the patience of your readers can indulge me so far, I will transcribe some paragraphs from a well-known, highly esteemed, and unquestionably orthodox divine; the one whose statements may be regarded, probably more than those of any other writer, as a fair representation of the sentiments held by the majority of Calvinistic divines, particularly the Nonconformists of England and the Presbyterians of Scotland and America, from the era of the Reformation (and indeed long before) to the present time;-Dr. JOHN OWEN. The quotation will shew in what manner the most judicious and approved writers of this class have thought it fit and scriptural to represent their doctrine, on the union of the human and the divine natures in the person of Christ.

"This union, the ancient church affirmed to be made, aτents, without any change in the person of the Son of God, which the Divine Nature is not subject to; adiapers, with a distinction of natures, but without any division of them by separate subsistences; aσvyx tws, without mixture or confusion; axwp15ws, without separation or distance; and eoiwows, substantially, because it was of two substances or essences in the same person, in opposition to all accidental union; as "the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily.'

"Each nature doth preserve its own natural, essential properties, entirely to and in itself; without mixture; without composition or confusion; without such a real communication of the one to the other, as that the one should become the subject of the properties of the other. The Deity, in the abstract, is not made the humanity; nor on the contrary. The Divine Nature is not by this union made temporary, finite, limited, subject to passion or alteration: nor is the human nature rendered immense, infinite, omnipotent. Unless this be granted, there divine and a human; nor indeed either will not be two natures in Christ, a of them; but somewhat else, composed of both."-Owen's Christologia, chap.

xviii.

One of the Reviewers whom Benevolus quotes, represents me as having used " compliments" towards some of the writers whose opinions I have opposed. I really cannot acknowledge myself chargeable with this fault. Compliments, understanding by the term expressions of honour or respect bordering upon the adulatory or exaggerated style, I should think mise rably out of place in a serious discussion of the most important religious subjects. Whatever language of respect I have used in relation to any of those whose doctrines or arguments I have disputed, has been no more than what I sincerely believe to be required by truth and uprightness. My situation is a little remarkable, but by no means unexampled. While your worthy correspondent has taken so much pains to convict me of an uncharitable spirit; another periodical work has made me the object of thundering rebukes, for undue "complacency,"

excessive liberality," and even "abandonment of principle." But I shall say, with the poet, apewa d

a warta and comfort myself with the conscientious persuasion that both classes of my reprovers are mistaken.

This letter has run out to a much greater length than I expected. I must, therefore, defer till the next month my request for the admission of what I may have to reply to my learned friend Dr. Jones,

J. P. SMITH.

REVIEW.

«Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame.”—POPE.

ART. I.-4 Vindication of 1 John v. 7, from the Objections of M. Griesbach, in which is given a New View of the External Evidence, with Greek Authorities for the Authenticity of the Verse not hitherto adduced in its Defence. By the Bishop of St. David's. Rivingtons. Pp. 70.

CCUSTOMED as we have been

venturing on the forlorn hope in defence of orthodoxy, we confess that we were not prepared for his present undertaking. The publication of Griesbach's New Testament, in which that great master of the art of sacred criticism, himself a Trinitarian, declared that there is no such thing as a rule of evidence for the text of the New Testament, if 1 John v. 7 be not spu rious, with the works of Porson and Marsh in the Travisian controversy, seemed to have convinced the orthodox of that day, that it was a hopeless task to defend its authenticity, and no man, with the smallest pretensions to the character of a scholar ventured to quote it as Scripture. The cause of truth, it was said, needs no such support; the doctrine of the Trinity can be established to demonstration from a multitude of other passages; let the Unitarians make what they can of the concession that this is spurious; we have other arrows in abundance in our quiver for their discomfiture. Soon, however, they found that their glorying had not been good, and that the doctrine of the Trinity was so far from being supported by such an exube rance of proof, that if this text were taken away there would not remain in the New Testament a single passage in which it even seemed to be taught. The weapon which had been thrown by was again brought forth from the armoury, to dazzle, at least, if it could not wound. The text of the Heavenly Witnesses again made its appearance in the controversy with the Unitarians, timidly and cautiously indeed at first, more boldly afterwards when it appeared that the authors of its former disgrace were no longer to be dreaded.

Griesbach and Marsh were gone to their reward, the arm that smote the wretched Travis into atoms was paralyzed by death; so the Nolans and the Hales' thought they might come forth in safety, and parade to the sound of their own acclamations over the deserted field. For the honour of criticism we are grieved to see Bishop Burgess lend to these empty boasters

associated the recollection of services rendered in former days to classical literature: we were indeed aware, from his former works, that his zeal against Unitarianism had overpowered not only his judgment but his learning: still we were not prepared to expect from him any thing quite so weak, superficial and disingenuous as this Vindication.

Our readers, we presume, are generally aware, that the text of the three Heavenly Witnesses, and the words

in the eighth verse, are found in no Greek MS. except that of Dublin College; that they are cited by no Greek father in all those violent controversies about the Trinity and the person of Christ, when heaven and earth were moved to furnish argu ments against the heretics; when the most strained and absurd allegorical interpretations of Scripture, and of the eighth verse in particular, were resorted to; when the words which precede and the words which follow the text in question were quoted; that they are found in the MSS. of no one ancient version but the Vulgate; that even of this, though the majority re tain, the oldest and the best MSS. reject the seventh verse;* that of the Latin Fathers, many, to whose argu ments it would have been invaluable, have not quoted it; and that Vigilius Tapsensis, at the close of the fifth century, is the first in whose works a

"The few Latin MSS. that reject

the verse are as much superior to the herd of incorrect and modern copies that retain it, as a small, well-trained band of soldiers to a numerous rabble destitute of discipline and unanimity."-Pors. p. 154.

« AnteriorContinuar »