Each author is solely responsible for the views expressed in his article. Notice of discontinuance must be sent to the Publishers; otherwise subscriptions will be continued. Entered as Second Class Mail Matter at Princeton, N. J. LIST OF BOOKS REVIEWED FOSDICK, The Assurance of Immortality.. GUNKEL, Reden und Aufsätze.... HADORN, Zukunft und Hoffnung.. HAERING, The Christian Faith.... BOUSSET, Kyrios Christos.... .... 636 CLAY, Babylonian Records in the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan 627 CонU, Vital Problems of Religion..... DE VRIES, De Pro Acta der Dordtsche Synode in 1618..... EEKHOF, De Questierders van den Aflast..... EUCKEN, Can We Still Be Christians?.. 622 661 654 618 619 633 691 667 HARRENSTEIN, Hed Arbeidsterrein der Kerk in de Groote Steden 658 KNOX, The Religious Life of the Anglo-Saxon Race.. MUNRO, The Origin of the Third Personal Pronoun Epicene in VON GALL, Der Hebräische Pentateuch der Samaritaner.. WARFIELD, The Saviour of the World.... Copyright 1914, by THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW ASSOCIATION. 623 695 The Princeton OCTOBER, 1914 KIKUYU, CLERICAL VERACITY AND Kikuyu, clerical veracity and miracles: it might seem that no three topics could bear less intrinsic relation to one another. In point of fact they are connected by very natural bonds, and it was inevitable that the controversy aroused by the publication of the Bishop of Zanzibar's open letter at the end of last year1 should run rapidly through stages which raised successively the three issues of intercommunion, the sincerity of clerical engagements, and the supernatural origin of Christianity. The bomb-shell which Dr. Weston cast into the Anglican camp was thus like one of those fire-work bombs of Chinese concoction, which explode first into a serpent, out of which is at once extruded a noisome reptile, while from that in turn proceeds a fiery dragon. Each successive stage of the controversy cuts more deeply and uncovers more clearly the canker which lies at the root of much of our modern Church-life. The question raised in its first stage concerns only the limits of proper Christian communion; the issue in the second stage is just common honesty; while what is at stake in the third stage is the very existence of Christianity. The three issues are necessarily implicated in one another because they are only varying phases and interacting manifestations of 'Ecclesia Anglicana. For what does she stand? An Open Letter to the Right Reverend Father in God, Edgar, Lord Bishop of St. Albans. By Frank, Bishop of Zanzibar. 1914. Some curious details as to the publication of this letter may be read in the Christmas (1913) number of The Christian Warfare (Talbot & Co.), the organ of the Catholic Literature Association. the fundamental conflict, underlying them all, between faithfulness to the Christian deposit and that indifferentism which is the outcome of essential unbelief. 3 I The Bishop of Zanzibar was handicapped in dealing with the question of the limits of proper Christian communion by his position as a member of the Church of England, one of the numerous and not altogether unconflicting boasts of which lies in its extreme comprehensiveness. As a bishop receiving his orders from (he may himself perhaps prefer to say "through") that Church and ruling over a section of it by its commission, and as a Christian who has been bred in it and still shares its life, participating of necessity in all that that life means, he is himself living in the most intimate communion with many of far less clearness of Christian faith and profession than any of those with whom the Bishops of Uganda and Mombasa communed on that now historic occasion in the Scotch Presbyterian Church at Kikuyu. In the amazing reversal of values which characterises the thought of extreme High Churchmen, he might indeed have taken refuge in the contention that episcopal organization is more fundamental to the Church's life than purity of Christian faith, so that where "Cf. The Case against Kikuyu. A Study in Vital Principles. By Frank Weston, D.D., Bishop of Zanzibar, 1914, p. 40: "A Bishop sent from England to Africa goes out not as a Bishop of the English Church, but simply as a Catholic Bishop who owes his consecration to the Universal Episcopate represented to him by prelates of the Church of England": and what follows, in which he repudiates the duty of carrying into Africa the peculiarities, among the Catholic bodies, of the Church of England,-e.g. its comprehensiveness. 'His Open Letter itself and his appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury surely carry with them the admission of that much as to the African sees. Cf. what Bishop Tucker said on this matter: "At present the missionaries of the C. M. S. working in East Africa, and their adherents, are members of the Church of England; they form the Church of England in East Africa" (quoted in Steps towards Reunion. A statement for the Consultative Committee. By the Right Rev. W. G. Peel, D.D., Bishop of Mombasa, and the Right Rev. J. J. Willis, D.D., Bishop of Uganda. 1914, p. 29.) episcopacy is everything else may be tolerated. Mr. R. A. Knox seems to give us to understand that by many of his supporters at least-and there is no reason to suppose Dr. Weston to be in substantial disaccord with them-any heresy whatever might be endured better than lack of episcopal orders: truths are only "enshrined by the Church," it seems, while "episcopacy is integral and belongs to the essence of the Church itself." It may be supposed, however, that it is more embarrassing to contend at Zanzibar than in the Common Rooms at Oxford-at least without some counterbalancing action-that it is more important to induce Mussulmans and Fetish-worshippers to permit themselves to be episcopally organized than it is to bring them to the acceptance of the Gospel. At all events the Bishop of Zanzibar has felt compelled in protesting against what he deems the laxity of the Bishops of Uganda and Mombasa in the matter of episcopacy, to protest also against the laxity of the Church of England in tolerating within its communion men who deny fundamental elements of the Christian faith. By so doing, he has not only guarded himself to some extent against the uncomfortable tu quoque, but has immensely strengthened his case. He appears not merely as the zealot of untenable episcopal pretentions, but as the champion of the Christian religion. 6 "The Church does not accept the Episcopate," he remarks (The Case against Kikuyu, p. 56), "she cannot exist without it." "The British Review, February, 1914, p. 186. His own contention is expressed in the words: "So that ultimately we are compelled to admit Episcopacy to be the result of divine will and guidance; and, apart from modernist views, the purpose and wish of Christ Himself" (The Case against Kikuyu, p. 18). But even this is made out only (1) by confusing parochial (Presbyterian) and diocesan (Episcopalian) episcopacy, and then (2) invoking the amazing principle (p. 13): “For it is now positively agreed among Christian theologians that it is not possible to distinguish in effect between an immediate act of God, and an act performed by Him through the agency of the Christian Church"-that is to say what the Church does, God does; and hence whatever is established by the Church must be declared to have been established by God. On that principle it may be said that Episcopacy is "the purpose and wish of Christ", for has it not been established by Christ's Church? This mode of con We may regret-we do regret-that it has been left to High Churchmen in the Church of England, to come forward effectively in defense of these fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. We may ask-we do ask—where are those Evangelicals who still boast that they constitute the core, or the larger portion, of the Church of England; and who, one would think, would have the greatest stake of all in the fundamentals of the faith and the warmest zeal of all for the preservation of them pure and whole for those who are to come after them-for what have they more than these? But it is a cause for rejoicing that in the prevailing apathy there are some who, even if it be merely because of the qualities of their very defects, raise a voice in defence of the well-nigh deserted cause of fundamental truth and demand greater faithfulness in preserving pure the deposit of the faith. There surely is no one really awake to the demands of the present situation, not only in the Church of England but in all the churches, who ciliating the Divine Right of Episcopacy with its tardy origin in the Church is becoming quite common. An extreme instance of it,-on quite other grounds than those occupied by Dr. Weston-may be found in the argument of the Rev. J. H. Skrine, D.D., who knows that "authority derives from Church to office and not the other way"-that is to say that Bishops are the creations and representatives of the church-and who on that ground seems disposed to grant the validity of non-episcopal ministries, and yet who is able to make his own such language as this: "Briefly, we declare that the Order of Bishops is an integral part of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ" (Eucharist and Bishop, 1914, p. 21). 'We agree thoroughly with the opinion of Dean B. I. Bell (The Atlantic Monthly, July 1914, p. 95): “Better the bitter intolerance of those who believe too much and too strongly than the easy complaisance of those who believe too little, and hold that too lightly." And there is truth in his remark that not only is (this so-called easy) "tolerance a destructive force" which is in danger of eradicating the very "capacity for constructive thought", but that those who are condemned as "intolerant" are often so-as he expresses it-only because they are "seers not politicians". Jesus Christ, he points out, certainly did not follow the methods of our modern campaigners for what they call "Church Unity", among whom there is manifested a tremendous amount of good feeling and a clear assumption "that there is no such thing as objective religious truth". |