Inspiration and Interpretation: Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of OxfordBurgon, John William
Religion
Inspiration and Interpretation: Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
Burgon, John William
Bible -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Bible -- Inspiration; Sermons, English
Such names do not require special comment. They are their own best
eulogium, and present a high title to their country's gratitude. The
name of Prebendary Lowth, (the author of an excellent commentary on the
prophets,) reminds us that there was living till 1732 one who fully
appreciated the calling of an Interpreter of God's Word[139]. Bishop
Lowth his son, in his great work, (1753,) recovered the forgotten
principle of Hebrew poetry. To convince ourselves what a spirit existed
in some quarters, (notwithstanding the general spread of the very
opinions which 'Essayists and Reviewers' have been so industriously
reproducing in our own day,) it is only necessary to transcribe the
title-page of S. Parker's excellent 'Bibliotheca Biblica,' a Commentary
on the Pentateuch, 1720-1735; 'gathered out of the genuine writings of
Fathers, Ecclesiastical Historians, and Acts of Councils down to the
year of our LORD 451, being that of the fourth General Council; and
lower, as occasion may require.'--That learned man designed to achieve a
Commentary on the whole Bible on the same laborious plan; but his
labours and his life, (at the age of 50,) were brought to an end in
1730.--Dr. Waterland, born in 1683, and Dr. Jackson, born in 1686,--two
great names!--died respectively in 1740 and 1763.--In 1778, appeared Dr.
Townson's admirable 'Discourses on the Gospels.' The author lived till
1792. Pious Bp. Horne (1730-1792) has left the best evidence of his
ability as a Divine in the Introduction to his Commentary on the Psalms.
Jones of Nayland is found to have lived till 1800. Bp. Horsley, a great
champion of orthodoxy of belief, as well as an excellent commentator,
critic, and Sermon writer, lived till 1806. Not seven years have elapsed
since there was to be seen among ourselves a venerable Divine, who was
declared in 1838, by the chief promoter of the 'Tracts for the Times,'
to have "been reserved to report to a forgetful generation what was the
Theology of their Fathers[140]." Martin Joseph Routh, died in 1854,
after completing a century of years. In 1832 appeared his 'Scriptorum
Ecclesiasticorum Opuscula.' His 'Reliquæ Sacræ' had appeared in 1814.
The work was undertaken so far back as 1788. The last volume appeared in
1848, and concluded with a _Catena_ of authorities on the great question
which was denied by the unbelievers of the last century, and _is_ denied
by the 'Essayists and Reviewers' of this[141]. Here then was one who had
borne steady witness in the Church of England to what is her genuine
Catholic teaching from a period dating long before the birth of any one
who was concerned with the 'Tracts for the Times.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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