Scottish episcopacy past and present / by Alexander Thomson.

  • Thomson, Alexander, 1798-1868.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scottish episcopacy past and present / by Alexander Thomson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    whether truth or error he taught, or as wholly unable to find out and say what is truth in the matter, or even to tell their people what their own Church holds and believes to be the truth. We cannot but sympathise most deeply with the members of a communion whose bishops offer to them such uncertain teaching. A Presbyterian may, perhaps, not be reckoned a very good judge of the powers and duties of a bishop of the Scottish Episco¬ pal Church ; but surely the plain meaning of the word ettjo-kottoc, or overseer, in a church, implies that the important function of a man holding such an office is, to take care that his subordinates teach no heresy for truth; whereas here we have a whole College of Bishops granting leave to a brother bishop to teach his people what they have condemned in a presbyter ; provided always the bishop, when so teaching heresy, takes care to warn his people that it is only his own doctrine and not that of his Church. Why did they not give a similar licence to the presbyter? Do they not know of any better standard of Truth than individual opinion ? Have their bishops no source from which to draw truthful teaching higher and better and more authoritative than their own personal opinions clad in all the mystery of mediaeval phraseology ? The Scottish Episcopal Church is now more loudly than ever proclaiming its identity with the Church of England, and endeav¬ ouring to obtain the sanction of the Legislature to its assertions; and yet its own clergy and bishops are not at one in regard to one fundamental doctrine of every Christian Church, viz.—the nature of Christ’s presence in the eucharist. Until they can give forth one certain doctrine on this point, it is vain for them to claim identity with the clear doctrine of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. We think the contents of the preceding pages fully prove the correctness of Archbishop Whateley’s opinion, '' that it is as clearly a distinct Church from ours as the Moravian, or the Lutheran, or the Waldensian.” ^ We have had occasion to read everything we could find con¬ nected with this controversy—in pamphlets, speeches, and news¬ papers ; we do not suppose we have read all that has been printed, but we have been constrained to read no small quantity on both sides of the question. We expected, in studying a Church question * Dean Ramsay’s “Present state of our Canon Law,” p. 17.