[86] See Nelson's _Life of Bp. Bull_, p. 242. [87] "The horizon which his view embraced was _much narrower_ than St. Paul's,"--who had enlarged his mind by foreign travel, (p. 168.) In a note, we are informed that "at any rate his Gospel cannot, by external evidence, be attached to the person (!) of St. John as its author." "Many persons," (it is added,) "shrink from a _bonâ fide_ examination of the 'Gospel question,' because they imagine, that unless the four Gospels are received as ... entirely the composition of the persons whose names they bear, and without any admixture of legendary matter or embellishment in their narratives, the only alternative is to suppose a fraudulent design in those who did compose them." (p. 161.) ... May one who has _not_ shrunk from 'the Gospel question' be permitted to regret that the Reverend writer has not specified the charges which he thus vaguely brings against the Gospels? _What_, pray, is the legendary matter; and _which_ are the embellishments? In the same page we read of "the first, or genuine, epistle of St. Peter." Is not his _second_ epistle genuine, then? [88] See above, p. lviii. [89] "Pleas for 'liberty of conscience' and 'freedom of opinion,'" (as on excellent writer has recently pointed out,) "can have neither place nor pretext, while there is liberty, for all who choose, to decline joining the Church of England; _and freedom, for all who choose, to leave her_."--Rev. C. Forster's 'Spinoza Redivivus,' (1861,) p. 6. [90] In what part of the Bible, (one begs respectfully to inquire,) is one called upon to "accept the story of an arresting of the Earth's motion, or of a reversal of its motion?" ... Would it not be as well to be truthful in one's references to the Bible? [91] See below, p. 68. [92] See Butler's _Analogy_, P. II. c. iii. [93] _Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1861, p. 275. [94] Take a few as a specimen:--"A great restraint is supposed to be imposed upon the Clergy by reason of their subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles. Yet it is more difficult than might be expected, to define what is the extent of the legal obligation of those who sign them; and in this case, the strictly legal obligation is the measure of the moral one. Subscription may be thought even to be _inoperative upon the conscience_ by reason of its vagueness. For the act of subscription is enjoined, but its effect or meaning nowhere plainly laid down; and it does not seem to amount to more than an acceptance of the Articles of the Church as the formal law to which the subscriber is _in some sense_ subject. What that subjection amounts to, must be gathered elsewhere; for it does not appear on the face of the subscription itself."--(p. 181. See down to page 185.) Can equivocation such as this be read without a sense of humiliation and shame, as well as of disgust and abhorrence? [95] p. 180 to p. 190. [96] Heading of the XXXIX Articles.